Santa Maria della Croce (crema)
Santa Maria della Croce is a church in Crema in the Lombardy province of Cremona , Italy . The church of the Diocese of Crema has the title of a minor basilica . The church was built after an apparition of Mary in the Renaissance style.
history
The location of the church is about a kilometer and a half from the city center and outside the medieval city walls on the road to Bergamo . It is here that Caterina degli Uberti from Cremona appeared to the Virgin Mary on April 13, 1490 . Legend has it that she was mortally wounded by her husband and pleaded with the Virgin Mary to die in the grace of God. A simple wooden cross was set up at the site of the murder, on which further miracles are said to have occurred, after which a sanctuary was built.
Bramante made a model for the church, but the work was commissioned to his assistant Giovanni Battagio , who added the four outer circular bodies. Battagio left the project around 1500 and was replaced by Giovanni Montanaro. The sanctuary, which was in an unfinished state, was damaged during the siege of the city by the Duchy of Milan in 1514.
In 1694, the sanctuary was placed in the care of the Discalced Carmelites , who began construction of the adjacent monastery in 1706. In 1710 they also added a bell tower. In 1914 the original brick paving was replaced by today's tiles. Santa Maria della Croce was founded in 1958 by Pope Pius XII. raised to the minor basilica.
description
Based on a Greek cross, Battagio designed an approx. 35 m high central building (outside circular, inside octagonal) in the Lombard Renaissance style, followed by four smaller units with a height of approx. 15 m. The exterior of the building is made of undecorated bricks.
Externally, the central main unit is divided into four rows, of which the lower one is provided with pilasters, the other three levels are laid out in as many walk-through galleries, which are admirably perforated in the outer screen. The gallery on the second level has lancet windows, while the third has triple arches that form double lattice windows with a decorated parapet . The original project for the top gallery was modified by Montanaro based on the Venetian Gothic style; it has small columns, three-arched arches and a decorated parapet similar to that of the second gallery, with curves in the form of octagonal snowflakes, stars, sunbeams and Greek crosses.
The western side corpus forms the main entrance to the church with a portal surmounted by a tympanum . The three other side bodies have similar features. The upper part of the side bodies merges into the central loggia of the second row. The bell tower is decorated with rustication and divided into six floors, the topmost is the lantern .
One of the side bodies is built on two levels. The crypt is on the lower floor and the main altar on the upper floor, which comes from the city's cathedral and is decorated with lapis lazuli and bronze. The altarpiece is an oil painting on canvas by Benedetto Rusconi , which bears the name il Diana and depicts the Assumption of Mary among the twelve apostles. In the choir there are four statues of the Doctors of the Church , made by Agostino de Fondulis. The side altars have a rich stucco decoration (1585) by Giambattista Castello . The altarpieces are by Antonio Campi , Bernardino Campi and Carlo Urbino. Other artists who worked on the interior paintings and frescoes are Benedetto Rusconi, Giovanni Battista Grandi, Aurelio Gatti, Angelo Bacchetta and the Torricelli brothers from Lugano.
The inside of the dome is decorated with the mystical visions of St. Therese of Avila by Giacomo Parravicino (1702).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Basilica Di Santa Maria della Croce on gcatholic.org
- ^ Lombardy Tourism site
- ^ Heinrich Decker: The Renaissance in Italy: Architecture • Sculpture • Frescoes. 1969, The Viking Press, New York, pp. 103f
- ↑ Architettura (Italian)
Coordinates: 45 ° 22 ′ 30.8 " N , 9 ° 41 ′ 51.6" E