Santa Maria Maggiore (Monte Sant'Angelo)

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facade

Santa Maria Maggiore is a church in the Apulian town of Monte Sant'Angelo . It essentially dates from the second half of the 12th century and belongs to a building complex with two other buildings, the relationship between which has not been clarified. It is known for the facade and the relief above the portal.

Location, context and naming

The church is located in the historic center of the city, almost next to the Tomba di Rotari . The apse of the otherwise non-existent church of San Pietro is incorporated between these walls ; the apse covers part of the left half of the facade of Santa Maria Maggiore. Almost nothing is known about San Pietro, only that the church collapsed in 1894 and was never rebuilt. Nevertheless, there must have been connections between the Tomba di Rotari as well as San Pietro and Santa Maria Maggiore. A corridor leads from the Tomba di Rotari into a room under the former apse of San Pietro. It is completely unknown why the facade of Santa Maria Maggiore was allowed to be covered during the construction of San Pietro. So far, no explanation has been found for the connections. She got her patronage from St. Maria .

History and building history

The current building had a predecessor, possibly from the 10th century. The current church was built around 1170. There is a legend that the building was founded by Constanze of Aragón in 1196, but no reliable evidence has yet been found. It seems conceivable that their foundation related to the facade: it had to be renewed after an earthquake in 1198, which is timely, a Benedict is named as the creator of the facade . The facade is from the Romanesque period , the interior of the church was changed slightly later and is early Gothic .

facade

The facade is two-story, five-axis in the basement and three-axis in the upper floor, the leftmost axis is covered by the apse of San Pietro. It is structured by pilasters under blind arcades, of which the middle arcade is higher and wider than the other three visible ones. The right corner pilaster follows a simplified variant of the Corinthian order in the capital . Diamond windows are inserted into the walls of the blind arcades at the level of the tympanum above the portal. The entire construction of the facade is related to other Apulian church facades, for example that of Santa Maria di Siponto . The gable structure with the recessed round window itself does not look very happy, it admittedly takes over the basic structure of the basement between columns instead of the pilasters, but was noticeably changed in later centuries and thereby "disfigured".

The actual portal is richly decorated. The outer one of the four tiered archivolts rests on eagles, the others are supported by lavishly crafted double tiered half-pillars with capitals again of the Corinthian order, but here in the area of ​​the acanthus leaves very detailed. The right outer capital contains the depiction of a male figure with a crown, possibly supposed to depict King David , the consort of the possible donor Constanze, Emperor Heinrich VI , would also be conceivable . At the base of the archivolts are the relief symbols or representations of the four evangelists , from right to left: the bull for Luke , the eagle with a halo for John , the winged lion for Mark and a representation of another saint for Matthew .

Of particular interest is the central semicircular relief that is embedded in the tympanum of the portal above the architrave decorated with foliage in circular garlands . It is a representation of Mary with the baby Jesus and two angels as well as two other figures . The two angels each wear a small turibulum . It is unclear who the two smaller figures should be. In terms of art history, various combinations are considered possible, both the builder of the portal Benedict and another founder or master builder, but also that Benedict with a depiction of the then four-year-old Frederick II or Constanze and Heinrich VI.

Interior

The church has a basilica structure inside , so it has three naves with a raised central nave. The characteristic of the early Gothic changes are the pointed arcades and belt arches of the side aisles. These are supported by pillars preceded by half-columns and pilasters. The church has only three bays; in relation to its short length, the side aisles and the central nave are very high. In the third yoke to the semi-hexagonal choir , the central nave is vaulted with a small dome with small arched windows, otherwise the central nave is covered by a barrel with small stitch caps.

During renovation and restoration work in the 1950s and 1960s, some remarkable frescoes from the 13th and 14th centuries were found, both on the pillars and on the walls.

literature

  • Ekkehart Rotter: Apulia . Trips to Byzantine grotto churches, Norman cathedrals, Hohenstaufen forts and baroque buildings in Lecce. (=  DuMont art travel guide ). 6th edition. Dumont Reise Verlag, Ostfildern 2012, ISBN 3-7701-4314-0 .
  • Rolf Legler: Apulia: 7000 years of history and art in the land of cathedrals, forts and trulli. , DuMont Verlag, Cologne 1987, ISBN 3-7701-1986-X .
  • Carl Arnold Willemsen : Apulia - Cathedrals and castles. , 2nd Edition. DuMont Schauberg, Cologne 1973, ISBN 3-7701-0581-8 .
  • Valentino Pace: Art monuments in southern Italy: Apulia, Basilicata, Calabria , Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1994 ISBN 3-534-08443-8 .
  • Ludwig Tavernier: Apulien , Artemis-Verlag, Munich 1987 ISBN 3-7608-0792-5 .
  • Vincenzo Velati: Le cattedrali romaniche pugliesi , Laterza, Roma [u. a.] 2001 ISBN 88-421-0668-2

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Carl Arnold Willemsen: Apulia - cathedrals and forts. , P. 62.
  2. ↑ Rotter: Apulia: Byzantine grotto churches, Norman cathedrals, Hohenstaufen forts and Lecceser baroque. , P. 131.
  3. ^ Carl Arnold Willemsen: Apulia - cathedrals and forts. , Illustration part, Fig. 24.
  4. ↑ Rotter: Apulia: Byzantine grotto churches, Norman cathedrals, Hohenstaufen forts and Lecceser baroque. , P. 131.
  5. ^ Carl Arnold Willemsen: Apulia - cathedrals and forts. , P. 63.
  6. ↑ Rotter: Apulia: Byzantine grotto churches, Norman cathedrals, Hohenstaufen forts and Lecceser baroque. , P. 131.
  7. ↑ Rotter: Apulia: Byzantine grotto churches, Norman cathedrals, Hohenstaufen forts and Lecceser baroque. , P. 132.
  8. ^ Carl Arnold Willemsen: Apulia - cathedrals and forts. , P. 63.

Coordinates: 41 ° 42 ′ 26.5 ″  N , 15 ° 57 ′ 17 ″  E