San Marco (12th century)

  
Detail of a painting (ca. 1636) of
Pope Leo III arriving at Spoleto (Pinacoteca)
The Abbazia San Marco is shown inside the
outer circuit of walls, with the Convento di
SS Simone e Giuda in the background		The small ruined church as it is today,
with the ex-Convento di SS Simone e Giuda
in the background

A considerable body of evidence testifies to the existence of an abbey here from at least the 6th century:

  • A funerary inscription found here related to Annidius Numeianus, who died in 543 AD at the age of 74.  [Where is it ??]

  • Eleuterius, the abbot of the Abbazia di San Marco, is mentioned in the Dialogues of Pope Gregory I (late 6th century). 

  • A mosaic (6th century) of red, white and black tesserae, which was discovered in what seems to have been the crypt of the old church in the 1920s, is now in Room 4 of  the Museo del Ducato di Spoleto. 

The complex, which was outside the Roman walls, seems to have been destroyed in Saracen raids in the 10th century.  

The current church is documented as a possession of the Abbazia di Farfa in 1252, when its rector and the abbot of Farfa gave adjacent land to the Franciscans for the new church and convent of SS Simone e Giuda.  The church and surrounding buildings were subsequently abandoned.

Return to Walk I.