San Domenico 

(1285 - ca. 1474)

A small group of Dominicans came from Perugia to Foligno in ca. 1260 and settled beside a church and hospice just outside the city walls.  The Dominican Bishop Paparone de Paparonibus gave the present site them in ca. 1269 and Pope Honorius IV confirmed the transfer in 1285.  The new convent housed a studium by 1288.  

Pope Pius V transferred the convent to the reformed branch of the Order in 1566. 

The convent was suppressed in 1799, in 1806, in 1848 and then finally and permanently in 1860.  A number of frescoes were detached and moved to the civic collection soon after.  After a chequered subsequent history, plans were made to restore the church in 1972, but these came to nothing.  The roof collapsed in 1976, which brought matters to a head.  The project to convert it into an auditorium began in 1982 and was completed in 1996.

Exterior

The history of the construction and decoration of the church in barely documented, but it seems to have taken place over a considerable period of time. 

• The present apse was begun in 1435 and was still not finished in 1474.  (The campanile to the left in the illustration belongs to the adjacent Orarotio del Crocifisso (see Walk II).
  
  

• The campanile was built in 1483. 
  

The unfinished façade of the church in Piazza San Domenico is of pink and white stones and contains an ogival door. 

Interior

The huge church has an uncluttered nave that was designed for preaching to large congregations. 

A large number of altars and funerary monuments were built inside the church from the 16th century, and these obscured most of the earlier votive frecoes.   A number of these were recovered during the recent restoration.

This tour of the frescoes starts from the entrance to the right of the ticket office.  The numbers in square brackets below refer to the information boards provided in the auditorium. 

Right Wall

St Felician (late 14th or early 15th century) [17]

This full-length figure (of which a detail is illustrated here) is under the entrance arch (on the right as you enter).  The artist responsible, who probably came from Orvieto, probabbly also painted the unidentifiable figure opposite.

Mystical marriage of St Catherine (early 15th century) [16] 

This fresco is attributed to Giovanni di Corraduccio.

St Sebastian (15th century) [13]

This fresco fragment, which seems to be part of a painting of a statue of the saint in a tabernacle, is attributed (not particularly reliably) to the young Nicolò di Liberatore, called l’ Alunno. 

Christ in the house of Mary and Martha (ca. 1400) [7]

This fresco is attributed to the Maestro dell’ Abside Destra di San Francesco di Montefalco.  (Another less well-preserved fresco, perhaps of the same subject and by the same artist, is on the opposite wall [14]). 

St Thomas Aquinas in Glory (early 15th century) [1]

This damaged fresco is close to one on the counter-façade (see below) that depicts the dormition and coronation of the Virgin, aspects of dogma in which St Thomas specialised. 

Counter-Façade (left) 

Dormition and Coronation of the Virgin (ca. 1400) [??]

This fresco is attributed to the  Maestro dell’ Abside Destra di San Francesco di Montefalco.  The angels play authentic musical instruments of the period. 

Counter-Façade (right) 

Pietà with saints (early 15th century) [3]

This fresco, which is attributed to Giovanni di Corraduccio, depicts the Pietà with SS Michael, James, Antony Abbot and Bartholomew. 

Madonna del Latte with saints (early 15th century) [4]

This fresco is attributed to the Maestro dell’ Abside Destra di San Francesco di Montefalco.  It depicts the Madonna and Child with SS Peter Martyr, John the Baptist, Catherine of Alexandria and Dominic.

Stigmatisation of St Catherine of Siena (early 15th century) [5]

This fresco is attributed to the Maestro dell’ Abside Destra di San Francesco di Montefalco.  The iconography, in which a crucified seraph appears to the orant saint, is taken from that used for the stigmatisation of St Francis. (Franciscans such as Robert of Lecce were extremely critical of this practice.) 

Left Wall

Volto Santo (early 15th century) [1]

The arch through which you enter the auditorium frames this fresco, which is attributed to the Maestro dell’ Abside Destra di San Francesco di Montefalco.  It depicts Christ fully clothed on the cross, an iconography known as the Volto Santo (Holy Face).  A female saint (perhaps St Cecilia, the patron of musicians) stands to the right and a kneeling figure (perhaps the donor) on the left plays a stringed instrument. 

The iconography of the Volto Santo derives from a venerated wooden sculpture in the cathedral of Lucca.  According to tradition, an angel guided Nicodemus as he worked on the figure, but he was seized by the fear when he came to work on the face. He fell asleep and when he awoke, the face had been miraculously completed.  Bishop Gualfredo of Lucca was guided to the hidden sculpture by a dream while on pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 782.  He entrusted it to a boat without a crew, and it duly arrived off the coast of Luni.  A cart led by oxen took it to the church of San Frediano in Lucca, but by the next morning it had miraculously moved to the church of San Martino, which then became the site of the Duomo of Lucca.  The Dominicans revered the image because Christ appeared to St Catherine of Siena as she prayed before it.)

Death of St Peter Martyr (late 14th century) [8]

The fine artist who painted this fresco probably came from Orvieto.  Unfortunately, only a few fragments survive.  The largest of these, in the lower part of the fresco, depicts part of a fleeing friar.  The angels above and to the right of it probably carried a palm of martyrdom for the dying St Peter Martyr.

The fresco was painted over the slightly earlier but much more “old fashioned” fresco of SS Gregory and Leonard with donor [7], which is attributed to Giovanni di Corraduccio.

Madonna and Child with saints (ca. 1400) [14]

This fresco, which is attributed to the Maestro dell’ Abside Destra di San Francesco di Montefalco, depicts the Madonna and Child with SS Antony Abbot and Catherine of Alexandria. 

Assumption of the Virgin (late 14th century) [20]

Only the upper part of the fresco, which is attributed to Cola Petruccioli, survives.  The fragment depicts the top of a mandorla of angels’ faces that almost certainly encircled a figure of the Virgin.  There is a bust of a prophet in the decorative frieze above.

Fresco fragments (late 14th century) [21, 22]

These fragments, which are attributed to Cola Petruccioli,  were part of frescoes depicting:

• the Presentation at the Temple (or meeting at the Golden Gate); and
  

• the Madonna and Child with two saints (perhaps SS Catherine of Alexandria and Dominic). 
  

Presentation at the Temple (ca. 1400) [25]

Only a fragment of this fresco, which is attributed to the Maestro dell’ Abside Destra di San Francesco di Montefalco, survives. 

Madonna di Loreto (15th century) [27]

This fresco is attributed to Bartolomeo di Tommaso. 

Right Apsidal Chapel 

Crucifixion with saints (late 15th century) 

This sinopia depicts the Crucifixion with the Virgin and SS John the Evangelist, Peter, Paul and the kneeling Mary Magdalene. 

• The associated fresco was detached in 1863 and is now in the Pinacoteca Civica (Room 1, number 30).  It is documented as the work of Pierantonio Mezzastris. 
  

• Another detached fresco of the angel of the Annunciation (late 15th century), which is attributed variously to Pierantonio Mezzastris or Benozzo Gozzoli and which seems to have been associated with it, is exhibited there as number 35.

Other Art from the Church 

Madonna and Child and saints (late 15th century)

This detached fresco, which is attributed to Pierantonio Mezzastris, is now in the Pinacoteca Civica (Room 1, number 28).

St Antony Abbot (early 15th century)

This detached fresco is now in the Pinacoteca Civica (Room 5, number 14).

Return to Walk II.