San Gregorio Maggiore (1079-1146)


Early Christian Cemetery

After the martyrdom of St Gregory of Spoleto  in 303 AD, St Abbondanza (the widow) buried him outside the city walls, near a bridge called "Sanguinarius".  This was almost certainly an early Christian cemetery on the site of the present church, which is dedicated to him.  Further evidence of the existence of the cemetery is a funerary inscription that was once in the crypt of the present church, which Cyriacus of Ancona transcribed in the 15th century [CIL XI 4975].   This recorded the grave of a lady called Picentiae, a new convert whom Pope Liberius (352 – 66) had christened. 

Two funerary inscriptions (6th century) survive in the present church:

  • An inscribed cippus  that was retrieved from the left wall, which is now in the apse (see the page on the interior), recorded the graves of Vitalis and Stefania.

  • An inscribed cippus with an early Christian inscription now serves as the base of the altar in the crypt (see the page on the interior).
According to local tradition, St Abbondanza (the virgin) built a church in the cemetery in ca. 840.  The sculpted relief (8th 0r 9th century) that has been re-used as the architrave of the left entrance to the church (see the page on the exterior) may well have come from this building.  [Capitals and columns (6th century) in the crypt suggest that there were already other public buildings, probably oratories, nearby.]  Relics of St Gregory were taken from this church on at least two occasions in the 10th century:
  • Bishop Theoderic (Dietrich) I of Metz took most of the relics to Metz in 970. 

  • Bishop Olderico of Cremona (973-1004) took some of the them to Cremona. 

Present Church

Two inscriptions on the left wall (see below) set out the history of the construction of the present church:

  • The first records that construction began in in 1079. 

  • The second records that it was consecrated in 1146, at which point its construction was presumably complete.

The church does not seem to have been damaged during the sack of Spoleto in 1155, although the Emperor Frederick I seems to have seized further relics of St Gregory and sent them to Cologne.

A resurgence of the fortunes of Spoleto probably began in 1177 with the peace  signed between Frederick I and Pope Alexander III and the investiture by the latter  of Bishop Transarico.  He seems to have moved to San Gregorio for a short time so that old Palazzo Vescovile could be demolished to make way for the rebuilding of the Duomo.  A donation that he made in 1178 to the canons of San Gregorio constitutes the earliest surviving documentation of:

  • a community of canons here, although it may well have been formed in ca. 1067, the date at which Bishop Andrea established or reformed the canonical community at the Duomo; and
  • an adjacent hospice, which probably stood to the left of the church.

The canons' rapport with the bishop did not persist into the following century:

  • In ca. 1200, Pope Innocent III intervened on behalf of the canons in a dispute with Bishop Benedetto.
  • In 1254, in the document by which Bishop Bartolomeo Accoramboni established the nearby Ospedale della Stella (see Santa Maria della Stella), he criticised the canons for their dereliction in allowing their old hospice to fall into dilapidation.  He prohibited them from interfering in the new foundation, although in fact there were later close links between the canons and the hospice.

The church was re-modeled on a number of occasions, most notably in the 18th century when the walls were covered in stucco decoration.  The facade was returned to something like its original appearance in 1907 and the interior in 1947-50.

The church is described on three pages:

Return the Walk II.