HISTORY
Sant’Apollinare in Longana is located about eight kilometers from Ravenna, in the town of Longana, along road 67, which connects Ravenna and Forlì. According to tradition, the church was erected where Sant’Apollinare, the first bishop of Ravenna and patron of the city, found refuge when he was kicked out of the city by Pagan priests. The first written record of the church is from 1038, preserved in the Archiepiscopal archive in Ravenna. The church grew in prestige as a result of their burial privileges. In 1079, it became a pieve. Today, the main façade of the church faces east, but originally faced west, as was usually the custom for Christian churches.
ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
The medieval façade is still visible, as is the trace of the old portal. In the tympanum, a Greek cross is inserted into the wall. Four pilaster strips demarcate the space of the façade: two flank the portal and the other are located at the edges. The exact dates of the façade construction are uncertain, although the reversal of orientation had already occurred in 1717. The single-aisled, rectangular building has modest dimensions and a wood-trussed roof. A double-lancet window sits above the portal, and was restored several times. The most important restoration occurred in 1933.
The primary material utilized in the building is reused Roman stone. In the lateral walls, the various phases are easily distinguishable, as in the presence of the pilaster strips and three walled-in windows.
The old façade to the left has a rectangular campanile in the same kind of stone as the church. Double-lancet windows rest on marble colonnettes, reopened during the restorations. The campanile has a spire constructed between 1934-35.
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
The origins of the parish are unknown, but it was probably built on an earlier pagan temple. According to tradition it was built by San Leone, a skilled stonecutter and considered to have been the first bishop of the city. From a door close to the façade, the shrine of San Leo is accessible (3-4th century), where a 8th-century sarcophagus is preserved, decorated with two peacocks drinking. The church is a beautiful example of Lombard-pre-Romanesque of the 9th century, built on the rock of the mountain, in sandstone, limestone and other materials.
ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
The exterior wall of the church is punctuated by pilaster strips, which rest on a socle. On the sides, two round-arch portals are surmounted by a blind loggia with two arches composed of white and red alternating stones. These pseudo-loggias recall the Byzantine architecture of Ravenna. The interior is three-aisled, covered by a wood-trussed ceiling, subdivided into seven bays by a round arcade, with thin pilasters and columns above. The Corinthian columns and capitals are spolia. The three apses are in the east, and the central one is more than twice as big as the lateral two. The church is illuminated by a large double-lancet window in the nave and three single lancets in the apses.
The choir is 1.5 meters above the nave, accessible via a stair. In its center sits an elegant ciborium of 882, held up by four marble columns with capitals. The crypt is below the choir, illuminated by three small lancets and was totally restored in the 1930s, as was the rest of the church. These restorations allowed the recuperation of the building’s original Romanesque structure. The church interior is relatively unadorned and completely in stone, allowing visitors to immerse themselves in an atmosphere of peace.
HISTORY
The Duomo of San Leo, among the most important Romanesque monuments of Romagna, is dedicated to San Leone, patron of the diocese. Its construction is the result of various interventions between the 9th and 13th centuries. The Duomo is located between the 9th century pre-Romanesque parish church and the bell tower. These buildings were once part of a single Episcopal complex. The church we see today was built in 1173, when the city’s Bishop Valfrerus ordered its construction over the ruins of a 7th-century building, in a declaration of the importance the Episcopal seat of San Leo had assumed. Two busts sit above the entrance portal: on the left is San Leo, on the right, the Bishop Valfrerus, now missing his head.
ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
The Duomo is 36.2 meters long by 18.3 meters wide, composed primarily of sandstone with accents of limestone blocks. One of the church’s defining characteristics is its asymmetry. As is also the case with the parish church next door, the entrance to the Duomo is through a portal located on the side of the building.
The church is three-aisled with three corresponding apses, stone barrel vaults in the transept arms, the choir and the aisles. A groin vault sits over the crossing. Alternating compound piers and classical columns divide the nave from the aisles. These supports carry a rounded arcade in the choir and pointed in the nave. It is one of the oldest examples in Italian architecture of the use of pointed arches to support the nave. The bas-relief decoration of the capitals reproduces the so-called medieval bestiary, with biblically symbolic animals.
The raised presbytery, accessible via a 16th-century stair, includes three aisles divided by two arches carried by columns, at the center of which is a marble colonnette with a Corinthian capital.
HISTORY
The parish church of Santo Stefano is a half-kilometer from Pisignano, nine kilometers from Cervia. It is among the best-preserved churches in the province of Ravenna from the 8-9th centuries. During excavations carried out in 1912, Roman bricks and a tombstone fragment were found. These discoveries, as well as a sacred arc with a relief of the god Mithras, now supporting a holy water font, suggest that the church was built atop a pagan temple. The tombstone is now in the archiepiscopal museum in Ravenna. We do not have specific data about the church’s construction. The earliest document mentioning it is from 977. After 1000, it is mentioned in several documents. Initially dependant on the city of Cesena, it definitively entered the diocese of Cervia around 1340.
ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
The brick church has small dimensions and is well proportioned, displaying simple and pure architectonic lines. The exterior is bare; the uniformity of the façade interrupted only by four pilaster strips, two on the corners and two on the sides, and by an oculus aligned with the central portal. A fragment with a cross and a hand giving a benediction is located on the south side of the building (12th century). These crosses were located along the streets to indicate to pilgrims that a hospice was nearby.
The three-aisled church is divided by three round arches. The apse is decorated by 16th-century frescoes representing God giving a blessing and the Virgin among saints, attributed to the Ravenna painter Luca Longhi (1507-1580). The apse, at the beginning of the 16th century, was externally polygonal, as was often the case with the churches of Ravenna, and not circular as it is today. The square bell tower was demolished and reconstructed. In fact, in 1512, the whole church was destroyed. It was rebuilt with the recuperated material for the first time in 1912 and later in 1979-1982. The restorations eliminated the Baroque interventions that had excessively weighed down the original structure, allowing us to enjoy the little proto-Romanesque church in all its simple beauty.
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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