Santa Maria della Pieve

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Position of the church with the apse facing the Piazza Grande (left)

The Church of Santa Maria della Pieve (officially: Pieve di Santa Maria Assunta ) is the oldest and after San Francesco the second most important church in the city of Arezzo . It is located in the city center on the Piazza Grande .

Building history and function

Corner of the facade and tower

A previous building, of which traces can still be traced on the south portal to Via Seteria, is already occupied for the year 1008. The current Romanesque building made of sandstone was probably started around the middle of the 12th century, but construction lasted until the 14th century.

The facade was built in the 13th century, with the blind arcades and dwarf gallery in front of the 12th century inner wall layer . Around 1330 the campanile , popularly known as the "Tower of 100 holes", was completed; What is meant are its 40 biforas (that is, in reality only 80 "holes"), which are arranged in five floors on all four sides of the 59 m high square tower.

Restorations took place in the 16th and 19th centuries.

The creation of the Pieve was linked to Arezzo's rise as a free commune. The self-sufficient citizens built it in the center of the city in competition with the cathedral, where the bishop resided as a feudal lord on the hill of Pionta outside the city walls. The erection of a pieve in a city-state is very rare in northern and central Italy.

A pieve (lit. "parish / rectory") - the term has been preserved in numerous Italian place names - was a church with special rights, such as the right to baptism and burial. Only one Pieve had a baptismal font and a cemetery. The term pieve is derived from the vulgar Latin plebes, i.e. H. the Christian communities in the country, over which the parish also had jurisdiction and from which it received tithes .

location

Santa Maria della Pieve - unusual for an Italian square design, but due to the custom of the east facing - does not go with the facade, but with the apse on the sloping Piazza Grande , where a regionally known antique market takes place on every first Sunday of the month. The church is the oldest building on the stylistically heterogeneous, trapezoidal square enclosed by the Palazzo del Tribunale (17th century), the Palazzo della Fraternità dei Laici from different construction periods and Giorgio Vasari's Palazzo delle Logge .

Exterior construction

facade

The design of the apse with a blind arcade row in the basement and two open gallery corridors in the middle and upper floors takes up architectural ideas from Lucca and Pisa . The façade repeats and extends this principle of Pisan and Lucca Romanesque: below blind arcades, above three rows of open arcades.

The facade has rich sculptural decorations on the three portals. The tympanum above the central portal depicts the Assumption of the Virgin (1216), and the archivolt is decorated with bas-reliefs of the twelve allegorical figures of the month . The relief in the lunette above the right side portal depicts the baptism of Christ (dated 1221 or 1227); the left portal has only vines in the tympanum. The unknown artist of the portal decoration stands in the stylistic tradition of Benedetto Antelamis and probably knew French cathedral sculptures.

There is no gable construction; rather, the front of the shop is designed almost in a rectangular shape.

inner space

The church has a slightly warped ground plan to the south, which is due to the difficulties with the uneven terrain.

The three-aisled basilica with a two-zone inner wall elevation (pointed arcades and biforas as upper aisles) looks more like a hall church than a basilica due to the unusually high arched openings to the side aisles, which are barely perceived as such. Because of the few and small upper clad windows, the room looks dark and cool - a mood that has often been created consciously in hot countries.

The transept and crossing cannot be seen from the outside, the low dome is made of wood.

The interior of the choir apse and the crypt under the presbytery were redesigned and renewed in the 19th century.

The imaginatively designed column capitals belong to different stylistic traditions; on the one hand there are ancient forms, on the other hand Romanesque-Gothic mask and animal sculptures.

Polyptych by Pietro Lorenzetti

Pietro Lorenzetti : Polyptych by Pieve di Arezzo , 1320

The most important work of art in the interior of the church is a polyptych by Pietro Lorenzetti . In 1320 the client was the Aretian bishop Guido Tarlati .

Mary with the child is depicted between Saints John the Evangelist , Donatus , John the Baptist and Matthew . In the row above the main field, under blind arches, the Twelve Apostles appear around a scene of the Annunciation . The polyptych is crowned by the Assumption of the Virgin .

It is an early work by the Sienese artist who is iconographically and stylistically in the tradition of Duccio di Buoninsegna and is thus still very traditionally attributed to the Middle Ages; Unlike in Florence, where Giotto was working at the same time , little can be seen of the harbingers of the Renaissance. Yet the movement of the figures is more lively than with Duccio; Parallels to the sculptures by Giovanni Pisano have been described.

Other equipment

  • A high altar that Giorgio Vasari intended for himself and his family in the burial chapel was moved to the Badia delle Sante Flora e Lucilla church in 1864 .
  • Two bas-reliefs on the inner facade to the right of the central portal (“Birth of Christ” and “Adoration of the Magi”) were made by an unknown sculptor (presumably 13th century or later).
  • The baptismal font in the tower chapel with three scenes from the life of John the Baptist was made by Giovanni d'Agostino , a Sienese sculptor of the 14th century.
  • A rare iconographic motif can be found on a fresco on the left column of the presbytery: Dominic and Francis of Assisi side by side (Succession of Giotto, 14th century), remarkable because the Dominicans and the Franciscans were in clear competition at the time.
  • A jeweled reliquary bust of St. Donatus (patron saint of Arezzo) from 1346 is placed in the crypt.

organ

The organ was built in 1963 years by the organ builder Tamburini as opus 465. The instrument has 64 registers on three manuals and a pedal . The actions are electric. A special feature is the "Organo antico", a medium-tone work that can be played from the 1st manual .

I positivo aperto C – c 4
Principals 8th'
Flauto 8th'
Ottava 4 ′
Flauto 4 ′
Flauto in XII 2 23
XV 2 ′
Cornetto II
Ripieno V
Cromorno 8th'
violoncello 8th'
tremolo
I Organo antico C – c 4
Principals 8th'
Ottava 4 ′
XV 2 ′
Flauto in XV 2 ′
XIX 1 13
XXII 1'
XXVI 23
Voce angelica 8th'
II Grand'Organo C – c 4
Principals 16 ′
Principals 8th'
Flauto 8th'
Dulciana 8th'
Ottava 4 ′
Flauto 4 ′
XII 2 23
XV 2 ′
XIX 1 13
Ripieno VII
Tromba 8th'
Tromboncini 8th'
Tromba squillo 16 ′
Tromba squillo 8th'
Voce umana 8th'
Campane
III Espressivo C – c 4
Bordone 16 ′
Principals 8th'
Bordone 8th'
viola 8th'
Principalino 4 ′
Flauto 4 ′
Nazardo 2 23
Flautino 2 ′
Terza 1 35
Ripieno V
Tromba 8th'
oboe 8th'
Voce celeste 8th'
Campane
tremolo
Pedals C – g 1
Acustico 32 ′
Contrabbasso 16 ′
Principals 16 ′
Subbasso 16 ′
Basso 8th'
Bordone 8th'
Ottava 4 ′
Flauto 4 ′
Ripieno IV
Bombarda 16 ′
Trombones 8th'
Claroncino 4 ′
Tromba squillo 16 ′
Tromba squillo 8th'
Tromba squillo 4 ′
Campane

literature

  • Klaus Zimmermanns: Toscana. The hill country and the historic city centers. DuMont art travel guide, 5th edition 2004

Web links

Commons : Santa Maria della Pieve (Arezzo)  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. More information at it.wikibooks.org , accessed on February 7, 2017.


Coordinates: 43 ° 27 '53.6 "  N , 11 ° 53' 0.1"  E