Pope Francis travelled to the Italian town of Assisi on Thursday for a private visit to mark the 800th anniversary of the Pardon of Assisi, under which the slates of sinners can be wiped clean.

The 79-year-old Pope arrived by helicopter in the hill-town in central Italy where his namesake Saint Francis of Assisi was born and found God, renouncing his wealth for a life of poverty and becoming an emissary of peace during the Crusades.

The Argentine pontiff, who took the name of Francis in homage to the famous Christian friar and his devotion to the downtrodden, prayed in silence in the Porziuncola, a tiny church inside the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels.

It was here the Franciscan movement was founded, and here the venerated patron saint of Italy, animals and the environment died.

On Wednesday, the Pope said it would be “a very simple pilgrimage, but a very significant one”.

Thousands of pilgrims turned out to catch a glimpse of the head of the Roman Catholics despite the baking heat.

Born in 1181 to wealthy silk merchant, Saint Francis fought as a soldier and was imprisoned for a year, a period in which he is believed to have discovered God. He famously discarded his riches, was disowned by his father and tended to the poor in rags.

Aged 26, the Pope said Jesus came to him in a vision and told him three times, “go and repair my house which is falling into ruins”.

Legend has it he was praying in an abandoned chapel at the foot of the Assisi hills, and sold his horse to pay for the repairs to what would become the Porziuncola.