The Conventual Franciscans consider Assisi as the mother town and the monastery as spiritual centre of their order, while the operational centre is located in Rome. Pope Gregory IX laid the cornerstone for the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi and the friary on 17 July 1228, the day after the canonization of Saint Francis. In 1230, after two years the lower church was ready to uptake the bones of Saint Francis, who had died at Portiuncula in 1226, and had been transferred to the church San Gregorio, which later became the Basilica di Santa Chiara, after Santa Chiara's death.