Bagnoregio

A hill town in the volcanic country north of Rome, perched on a crumbling spur of tufa that erosion has been carrying away for centuries. Bonaventure was born here around 1221 and, according to the legend he himself repeated, was healed of a childhood illness by Francis of Assisi. The town's old quarter, accessible now only by footbridge, is called the dying city.

Bagnoregio sits on tufa, a soft volcanic rock that rain and landslide have been eating for centuries, so the old quarter now stands on an island of it reached by a long footbridge. Bonaventure took his name from the town and, by the story he told about himself, from words Francis of Assisi spoke over him when he was a sick child. He became minister general of the Franciscans and spent his career holding a fractious order together.