Sacro Speco di San Francesco, Medieval Catholic shrine in Narni, Italy

Sacro Speco di San Francesco is a medieval shrine situated on a hilltop at 600 meters (1,950 feet) elevation in Narni. The complex includes a church, cloister, and ancient cave structures built directly into the natural rock face.

Benedictine monks founded a hermitage here around the year 1000, known as the Eremo di Sant'Urbano, with the Oratory of San Silvestro and several caves. Saint Francis arrived in 1213 and the site became a Franciscan place of prayer. The convent was enlarged over the centuries, suppressed and later reopened in the 19th century, and inhabited by friars again only from 1942 after restoration.

The Oratory of San Silvestro, built by the Benedictines around the year 1000, has a 14th-century apse fresco showing the Crucifix with the Madonna, Saint John the Evangelist, Saint Francis and Saint Silvestro. Other frescoes depict Saint Clare, Saint Jerome and Saint Catherine of Alexandria. Behind the apse stands the old well from which, by tradition, came the water Francis turned into wine.

Access to the shrine follows the pedestrian Viale del Perdono, and a wooded avenue continues from the hermitage to the speco and its adjoining buildings. The rock cleft drops almost vertically, so the paths through the wood and along the slope call for firm footwear. The small church, the 15th-century cloister and the Oratory of San Francesco are visited on foot in sequence.

Behind the apse of the Oratory of San Silvestro stands the old well from which, by tradition, the water Francis blessed and turned to wine was drawn. Two frescoes in the nearby Oratory of San Francesco depict that episode. The stone cell beside the fissure holds the wooden bed the friars made for him during his illness.