HISTORY
The Parish of San Lorenzo di Panico is located north of Marzabotto, and is considered one of the most beautiful Romanesque constructions of the Bolognese Apennines. The building still preserves a large part of its original structure, although it did undergo a radical restoration at the beginning of the 20th century that erased later structural interventions. There are no specific documents that relate its construction to the family of the Counts of Panico, even if the relationships with the fiefdoms of the countryside were frequent and the canons definitely enjoyed large donations therefrom. the first document that cites San Lorenzo is from 1030, but the complex is probably older than that, as its vast canonical holdings of the 11th century seem to attest. A donation of 1208 refers to the construction of a cloister, and in 1248, the canons’ dormitory was built. These structures are the evidence of the parish’s articulated structure, including one of the most important religious building in the region.
ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
The church has a single apse and three aisles, and the walls are constructed of ashlar blocks, harmoniously connected particularly in the façade. The structural quality and the morphological characteristics recall the church of San Pietro in Valdottavo in the province of Lucca, as well as Santa Maria Assunta di Rubbiano in the province of Modena. The modern alterations and 20th-century restorations profoundly altered the building, but some documents report the existence of elongated single-lancet windows on the sides of the church, while the perimeter wall was probably decorated with ornamental motifs in polychrome brick, similar to the complex of Santo Stefano in Bologna.
The complex of Santo Stefano is composed of an ensemble of chapels, churches and associated monastery, known together as the “Sette Chiese” (seven churches). According to a legend, Santo Stefano was founded by San Petronio, the Bishop of Bologna between 431/432 and 450, who is buried there. The story reports that following a pilgrimage in the Holy Land, he founded a group of buildings destined to reproduce the sites of Christ’s Passion. Despite the legend, the first written record of the complex is not until the 9th century, in a diploma of Charles the Fat.
The various components of the complex date to different epochs. The church dedicated to the Holy Sepulcher was possibly a Roman temple dedicated to Isis, later transformed into a church with an edicola inside containing the relics of San Petronio. Where today the church of the Trinity is found, at the end of the 4th century was the area of a walled Christian cemetery. The church of San Giovanni Battista (today called the Crocifisso (crucifix), is instead probably of Lombard foundation, as the so-called basin of Pilate would attest, which contains an inscription referencing Kings Liutprand and Hildebrand, who reigned together from 736 to 744.
The beginning of the 11th century was a moment of great splendor for the complex, when the Abbot Martino built a crypt in the church of San Giovanni Battista, and on March 3, 1019 he translated the bodies of Saints Vitale and Agricola. At that date, the monastery probably already contained the structures that exist today: the curch of San Giovanni, the church dedicated today to Saints Vitale and Agricola, and the church of the Trinity.
HISTORY
The parish of San Pietro in Trento is located between the courses of the Montone and Ronco rivers. The name derives from the church’s location at mile thirty (according to Roman land division criteria) of the decumanus that runs across the north part of the province of Forlì.
ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
The three-aisled church is dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, and is largely constructed of reused material. The façade has a large double-lancet above the portal and a corbelled projection seen in other churches of Ravenna, such as San Pietro in Sylvis.
There are four pilaster strips on the façade that demarcate the interior subdivision of the nave. The sides of the church are crowned with a pensile blind arcade with single lancets underneath triple arches. The interior, simple and refined, has ten piers, a wood-trussed roof and an apse that is circular on the interior, polygonal on the exterior.
The raised presbytery has a marble altar hiding an oratory crypt, which recalls the crypt of the Basilica of San Francesco in Ravenna, as well as that of San Pietro in Sylvis. The construction material of the crypt is also largely reused.
The building has undergone several restorations, in particular in 1912-13 and 1923-27, which restored it to its original form following interventions of the 18-19th centuries, which had conferred Baroque forms on the church. The pavement was returned to its previous level during the restoration.
During the last world war, the bell tower was destroyed, along with the 15th-century fresco cycle in the lower room, falsely attributed to Melozzo da Foli.
The date of the building is uncertain, even if it is generally agreed to have been in the early 9th century. The crypt is dated around 1000-1026. The oldest written account of the parish is from 978.
HISTORY
In the hilly area around Bologna, atop the hill of San Benedetto, close to the hill “dell’Osservanza,” is the early-19th-century Neoclassical villa commissioned by Antonio Aldini, and today dedicated to the Napoleonic Ministry. The construction of the villa was the partial result of the dismantling of the preexisting buildings from the religious complex of the Madonna del Monte. In 1938, Guido Zucchini, who had studied the complex for years, researching the structures preceding the 19th-century upheaval, took apart the wall of the former circular dining room, exposing niches with extraordinary Byzantine frescoes. Following the restorations to the Romanesque building, in 1939, Zucchini published a detailed monograph of the complex’s history and artistic events. According to Zucchini, evidence of the Rotonda’s foundation can be found in a chronicle of 1465, written by Graziolo Accarisi, linking it with the legend of Picciola Galluzzi. Picciola had gone into a hermetic life on the hill of San Benedetto, when a dove drew a large circle with large pieces of wood. Picciola, having rushed to the site, after having consulted with the religious institutions of the city, decided to build a circular building dedicated to the Virgin. Following this tradition, the building is dated to 1116, similar to other architectural works in these hills in itiated by pious Bolognese women.
ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
Regardless of legend, the architectural culture of the Rotonda is definitely that of the 12th century, linked to other regional buildings, such as the Rotonda di Sacerno at Santa Maria di Calamosco. In 1873, the studies of Nikolajevic and Bergonzoni highlighted its importance and its specific role in the panorama of regional Romanesque architecture. It was built entirely of brick, with a diameter of 10 meters. The present building is the result of heavy restoration, begun by Zucchini in the 1930s. Along with the architecture, the splendid Romanesque frescoes are among the building’s most interesting features.
HISTORY
The Basilica of San Pietro in Sylvis sits about a half-kilometer from the city of Bagnacavallo in the province of Ravenna. It is the oldest and best-preserved among the parishes of Romagna. A perfect example of proto-Romanesque architecture, it is datable to the 6th-7th centuries, as the style of two ornamental arcades of the tabernacle suggest. Three centuries after the construction of the Basilica, a cylindrical campanile was built, which was demolished in 1668 when considered dangerous. It was rebuilt after the restoration of the church in 1933. In 1605, marble inscriptions dedicated to Jupiter were found (today conserved in the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara), which indicate the existence of an older pagan temple.
ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
The building is constructed of varying sizes of brick, with the apse oriented to the east. The west-facing façade is sparse and unadorned, with the exception of the buttresses that repeat on the exterior the spatial articulation of the building’s three aisles.
The apse is semicircular on the inside, polygonal on the exterior, recalling models from Ravenna, with three rounded arch windows. Its Giottesque frescoes from 1320-25 are notable, with scenes from the Crucifixion, attributable to Pietro da Rimini.
The simple brick interior maintains stylistic continuity with the exterior. The nave is much more spacious than the aisles, which are divided by sixteen pilasters, eight per side, forming nine rounded arcades. The double-trussed nave roof is of a deeply colored wood. The staircases lead to the raised presbytery over the crypt, two meters above the level of the church.
The church’s most evident modification, although it is almost entirely unaltered from its original form, is visible in the crypt, which was built later. Of massive dimensions, its pavement is about a half-meter lower than the level of the church. In the center is an 7-8th century altar, containing a Greek marble slab.
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