The crucifix is a 12th-century Umbrian icon-style cross — about two metres tall, painted on walnut over a linen ground — depicting the Christ of John's Gospel: open-eyed, alive, royal, with the small figures of Mary, John, Mary Magdalene, Mary of Clopas, the centurion and the soldiers in attendance. It hung above the altar of the half-ruined country church of San Damiano outside Assisi.
In about 1205 Francis Bernardone was twenty-three or so, newly returned from war captivity and in the long slow phase of his conversion — already withdrawn from his old worldly companions, beginning to give his father's cloth to the poor, but uncertain what God wanted of him. Praying alone before the crucifix, according to the earliest biographers, he heard the figure of Christ speak to him three times: 'Francisce, vade, repara domum meam, quae, ut cernis, tota destruitur' — 'Francis, go and repair my house, which, as you see, is falling into ruin.'
Francis took the words literally at first, sold his father's cloth to buy stones, and began to rebuild San Damiano and several other ruined chapels around Assisi with his own hands. Only later did he understand the universal mission. The crucifix was given by Francis to St. Clare and her Poor Clares; when the Clares moved into Assisi in 1257 they brought it with them, and it hangs today in the Basilica of Santa Chiara, in the chapel built specifically to receive it.