San Michele in Foro
San Michele in Foro , St. Michael on the Forum - the old Roman market square, is the second important church in Lucca after the cathedral . It also dates from the 12th century (from 1143). The builder was Diotisalvi (Major: Guidetto da Como).
The outer cladding and the facade were built from 1200 for a higher planned central nave, which then did not come about - hence the disproportionate height of the facade compared to the church building behind it.
At the end of the 13th century, the nave and aisle walls were subsequently bricked up. This created an innovation in Tuscan architecture on the south side of the nave . The lower storey is designed in the same way as in the churches in Pisa and Lucca so far, namely with a blinded arch position. Above that, however, there is no longer any fade-in, but what had previously only been done on the upper storeys of the facade: a decorative layer placed separately in front of the church wall - a dwarf gallery .
This transfer of the facade principle to the nave wall emphasizes the unified overall impression of the church and prevents the previously common discrepancy between the 'radiant' front and the 'plain' other church walls.
The facade shows - like that of the cathedral - a rich variety of structuring in the columns, the gusset zones and the cornices. S. Michele in Foro is one of the most splendid examples of this typical Tuscan design.
Here, too, there is a knot column on the far right, next to it two columns, whose shafts are formed from figures. There are sculptures of heads above the capitals. The capitals themselves partly show animal and plant shapes. This enormous variety of shapes also has symbolic meanings in numerous details.
literature
- Roberto Donati: Lucca . Narni 1982.
- Marcel Durliat : Romanesque Art . Freiburg-Basel-Vienna 1983, color plate 28, fig. 929.
- Klaus Zimmermanns: Toscana . Cologne 1980. (DuMont Art Travel Guide) p. 110, fig. 14,16.
Web links
Coordinates: 43 ° 50 '35.4 " N , 10 ° 30' 9.9" E