San Salvatore
(4th or 5th century ?)
There is great uncertainty about the early history of this ancient church. Until the 19th century, many scholars believed that its east end had been adapted from a pagan temple and that the nave and aisles had been added in the early Christian period. However, Giuseppe Sordini's
excavations in 1906-7 revealed that the east end and the facade were
from the same building, albeit that the intervening nave and aisles had
subsequently collapsed and been rebuilt. Architectural elements with Christian iconography were integral to this building, which was thus shown to have been purpose-built as a Christian place of worship.
The church stands on the site of an early Christian cemetery: an inscription (5th century) from the grave of someone called Felicissimus was discovered under the door on the right in ca. 1960. (The present municipal cemetery is next to the church).
The earliest secure reference to the church dates to 1064, when it was referred to as the "monasterium sancti concordi" (i.e. it was dedicated to St Concordius). It was later recorded with an additional dedication to St Senzius, and indeed it might have been built on the presumed site of his burial in the 5th century. The relics of these saints are preserved in an urn (1727) with an identifying inscription that could reproduce an older one. [Where is the reliquary ??]
The nuns at San Concordio, who do not seem to have belonged to a particular order, resisted the attempts of Pope Gregory IX to impose on them the form of life he had devised for female communities. He therefore ordered their suppression in 1235. A community of Augustinian hermits settled here soon after. Many of them moved to what became the convent of San Nicolò inside the city walls when Bishop Bartolomeo Accorambi gave them a church on this site in 1263.
The complex passed to a community of Servite tertiares in 1456 and to an order of reformed Augustinian monks in 1624. At the time of this last transfer, it was known as "sanctorum concordii et sentii nuncupata il Crucifisso" (SS Concordio e Senzia, known as SS Crocifisso).
The church retained this dedication until 1860, when Father Bonaventura Viani identified it with the "monasterium sanctii salvatoris", a monastery near Spoleto that the Emperor Louis the Pious confirmed as a possession of the Abbazia di Farfa in 815. This hypothesis was broadly accepted and the church subsequently became known as San Salvatore, although modern scholarship suggests that the original San Salvatore was in fact a different church.
The church was de-consecrated in th 19th century and was restored by Giuseppe Sordini in 1906.
Exterior
The façade, which originally had a portico with a wooden roof, has been recently restored. It is made up of two orders with what is now a fragmentary cornice between them. The bases of four pilasters that originally stood in the upper order can still be seen above the cornice, and there was probably originally a triangular pediment in another order above them.
The lower order has three portals, each of which has a carved lintel with a cross among acanthus leaves. The central portal is particularly fine.
The upper register, which is the width of the nave within, has three windows, each of which has elaborate columns to the sides.
- The two outer windows have Classical entablatures and triangular pediments.
The central window is extremely unusual and betrays eastern influence.
Interior
The interior is in the form of a high nave and two lower aisles. The colonnades that separated the nave from the aisles collapsed at a
relatively early date and have been crudely replaced by walls, each of
which has a series of arched openings.
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Right side of the presbytery |
Steps lead up to a presbytery. Giant columns at its corners support an octagonal drum and dome: the lantern was added in the 18th century. The original form of the colonnades in the nave can be deduced from the arrangement in the presbytery: there seems to have been three components:
an order of columns at ground level supporting a carved frieze;
an order of pilasters above; and
a clerestory (alternating windows and columns) above that.
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| Detail of the Annunciation (ca. 1466) by Filippo Lippi Duomo |
As mentioned above, the east end of the church survives in essentially its original form:
The nave culminates in a semicircular apse.
The aisles culminate in tall square chapels that deeper than the apse, which are reminiscent of the pastophoria that flank the apse in some Byzantine churches.
[Original pavement in the apse ?]
[Fragments of a ciborium (5th century) in the nave ?]
[Detached fresco of the Crucifixion with the Virgin and St John the Evangelist in the nave ?]
Crucifix (8th century ?)
This fresco is in the niche in the apse. It depicts a jewelled cross with gem stones and the letter alpha and omega hanging from the arms.
Frescoes in the apse (16th century)
Two damaged frescoes survive high up in the apse:
a Crucifixion with the Virgin and SS John the Baptist, John the Evangelist and Concordius by a follower of Giovanni di Pietro, lo Spagna (on the left); and
the Madonna and Child with an unidentifiable saint (on the right).
Frescoes in the chapel to the right of the apse (1478)
These frescoes by a follower of Benozzo Gozzoli, which are dated by inscription, depict
God the Father (above); and
the Madonna and Child with SS Concordius and Sebastian.
Art from the Church
Crucifixion (14th century)
This fresco of the Crucifixion with the Virgin and St John the
Evangelist was recorded in the 16th century, when it was already
detached and placed above the high altar. When this altar was destroyed in the re-modeling of 1906, the
fresco was moved to right wall. It was stolen in 1980 but recovered in
1983, after which it was restored and transferred to the Pinacoteca.
Return to Walk III.