Santa Maria di Monteluce


Exterior

The left wall of the church (in Via del Giochetto), which survives from the original construction, is buttressed by a series of integral brick pillars.  The truncated campanile (13th century) to the right, which still contains a bell that Pope Gregory IX gave to the nuns in 1235. 

The façade of pink and white marble probably dates to the restoration of 1449-51.  It is characterised by its distinctive rose window, which is made up of seven circles.  The double portals (ca. 1600) has busts in the lunettes of:

  • the Virgin and St Clare (on the left) ;and

  • SS Francis and Bernardino (on the right).

The Renaissance portico to the right used to open into the chapel at the base of the campanile.  It contains a copy (1983) of part of a fresco (14th century) of the Coronation of the Virgin that survives in the nuns' choir.






Interior

The interior is in the form of a single nave with a deep tribune that houses an organ on each side.  The high altar was moved forward in 1449 and a wall built behind it in order to convert the last bay of the church into a closed choir for the nuns.  The small door on the left of the altar wall leads to this new choir, which the nuns called “chiesa nostra dentro".  

The nave of what was they called the “chiesa de fuore” (i.e., the outer church, which was used for public services), was vaulted in 1470-2.

The interior was the subject of re-modeling in the Baroque style in 1602-7, during which the walls were covered with a series of important Mannerist frescoes that are sometimes attributed to Matteo Salvucci. 

   
 St Romuald defeating heresy
1st chapel on the left

 Resurrection of Christ
Counter-facade
 St Francis before the Sultan
2nd chapel on the right

Tribune

The original high altar (14th century) still survives at the entrance to the tribune.  As noted above, this altar was moved forward in 1449-51 and a wall was built behind it to enclose a choir for the newly reformed nuns. 

An important altarpiece of the Coronation of the Virgin was commissioned from Raphael in 1503 and finally installed in 1525 (see the page on works of art removed from the church).  This altarpiece was dismantled in 1750 and its main panel was re-installed in the frame that still survives on the back wall of the tribune.  The altarpiece that now occupies this frame is a 19th century copy of the original.


Crucifixion (late 15th century)

This large detached fresco on the back wall of the chapel under the campanile (which entered through the first door on the right) is almost certainly the fresco of the Crucifixion referred to in the “Memoriale di Santa Maria di Monteluce”.  It was commissioned from Fiorenzo di Lorenzo for the refectory using money from the will of sister Eufrasia Alfani in the time that Sister Lucy of Foligno was abbess (i.e. before 1491).

The fresco, which is very damaged, depicts the Crucifixion with the Virgin and St John the Evangelist against a landscape, with SS Francis and Clare kneeling at the foot of the Cross.

Crucifixion 

The altarpiece on the back wall of 3rd chapel on the right seems originally to have had two components:

  • a polychrome wooden Crucifix  (1499) commissioned by Sister Battista Alfani, which is now to the left of the tribune; and

  • a broadly contemporary fresco of the backdrop to the Crucifixion, which was replaced by the present fresco (early 17th century) that is now set around an incongruously small wooden Cross.  This fresco depicts the grieving Virgin and St John the Evangelist against a landscape, with flying angels that would originally have appeared to collect the blood of Christ.

  

Tabernacle (1487)

This Renaissance tabernacle by Francesco di Simone Ferrucci da Fiesole is to the right of the tribune.   The “Memoriale di Santa Maria di Monteluce” records that the purchase was financed from the bequest of the mother of Eufrasia and Battista Alfani, and that the sculptor travelled to Perugia to install it on the Altare del Sacramento.  When the money from the bequest proved to be inadequate, the nuns’ brothers made up the difference.

The tabernacle is crafted in of polychrome marble.  The lunette contains a figure of the Risen Christ.  Below, the baby Christ stands in a chalice held by angels, while two other angels flank the door to the receptacle in which the consecrated Host was kept.

Madonna and Child with St Lucy (14th century)

This fragment of a frescoed triptych from the earlier decoration of the church survives at the centre of the back wall of the 1st chapel on the left.  St Lucy carries her eyes in a bowl and a palm of martyrdom.




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