Autore: Franco Spellani

Don Diamante Santucci parroco di S. Emiliano

Foto03/05/05-690-30

D. Diamante Santucci

Chiesa S.Emiliano- VISITA GUIDATA – I Parroci EPIGRAFI MODERNE

05Y

Mons. Francesco Peticchi parroco di S. Emiliano

pagina in elaborazione

Nato a Frosinone il 24/03/1887, trasferitosi a Trevi con i genitori andò ad abitare nella nuova casa a monte del Viale Ciuffelli, (cancello e muro di sostegno a circa 300 m dall’inizio). Per maggiore comodità permutò successivamente il villino con la casa Salvi, adiacente alla chiesa di S. Emiliano, di proprietà delle Maestre Pie Filippini che a Trevi gestivano l’orfanotrofio femminile, l’asilo infantile e varie classi delle elementari.
Tra le maggiori realizzazioni di questo parroco c’è da annoverare il completamento del campanile e la celebrazione a Trevi del Congesso Eucaristico Diocesano.
Successe a Mons. Giuseppe Agostini e resse la parrocchia fino al 1955, quando subentrò D. Diamante Santucci.

Foto 03/05/05-690-29

Chiesa S.Emiliano- VISITA GUIDATA – I Parroci EPIGRAFI MODERNE

05Y

The building stands above the Flaminia highway, which was widened in 1961 and now occupies part of its land. The massive industrialization of the area has virtually drowned the building in a sea of little buildings, including a number of disused greenhouses; up to a quarter of century ago, the building was the only structure in an area otherwise completely given over to crops and presented a much more imposing appearance. The building may be considered as formed of three blocks, center, north, and south, built at various times and several times reworked.

The oldest part is the ground floor of the central block, where one can make out the façade of the Romanesque church dedicated to St. Thomas. It is a beautiful structure of worked stone, in a classic Romanesque style, probably dating to the 12th century. Like the many other little churches of that period in our area, it is strictly oriented, the façade thus being sited to the west. It is surmounted by a more recent construction, probably of the second half of the nineteenth century, when the complex passed to the Congregation of Charity and was rebuilt as a farmhouse. To this same period may be attributed the construction or modification of the south block, on the side toward Parrano. The north block on the other hand, the side toward the mountain, is a very ancient structure, not much later than the church itself: it must surely have been the old leprosarium. The side toward the valley was added later and shows the exterior staircase characteristic of farmhouses in the area.

The stone reads:

SISTE VIATOR AC DISCE NOVUM LOCI DECUS
HIC UBI ANNO MDCCXXXIV MENSE MARTIO
MORATUS EST CAROLUS III REX HISPANIARUM
CUM AD UTRIUSQUE SICILIAE REGNI POSSESSIONEM CAPESSENDAM PROGREDERETUR
PIUS VI PONT.MAX.
CUM VINDOBONA ROMAM REDIRET
PARUMPER CONSEDIT
A.D. III IDUS IUN. ANNI MDCCLXXXII
UT COLLEGII CANONICORUM
ET DECURIONUM TREBIATIUM
OBSEQUIA EXCIPERET
PHILIPPUS VALENTIUS
ABBAS ECCLESIAE S. THOMAE
MONUMENTUM PONI IUSSIT.

which might be translated:

Halt, traveler and see the new magnificence of the place.
Here where in the month of March, 1734
Charles III King of Spain stayed,
while he was on his way to take possession
of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies,
Pius VI, Supreme Pontiff,
when he was returning to Rome from Vienna
stopped briefly on June 11, 1782
to receive the homage
of the college of canons and of the administrators of Trevi.
Filippo Valenti, abbot of the church of S. Tommaso,
had this marker erected.

Fleshing out the information reported in the inscription, Tiberio Natalucci notes in his memoirs that in 1814 “On May 21 Pius VII was received in the church of S. Tommaso of Trevi, and in the adjacent building he and his court were provided with a grand refreshment“.¹

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Translated By Bill Thayer ©2010

09Z

Note

1)Zenobi, Carlo; Storia di Trevi 1746-1946, Foligno, 1987, p. 130

The ruins of the ancient church dedicated to St. Stephen at Manciano in the comune of Trevi are at 527 m above sea-level, on the top of S. Stefano hill overlooking the Fosso Rio, a creek forming the boundary with the comune of Foligno. During the time of the wars between the comuni, it held a strategic position as an outpost at the northern edge of Trevi territory, with a view onto Foligno and a wide swath of the valley, thus controlling the ever-important, active passes to the north-northeast of Trevi that opened onto the March of Ancona and the duchy of Camerino controlled by the Varano family. Of the church, only the outer walls remain, the elegant semi-circular apse and the crypt. Of the ancient abbey next to it only a few scattered stones have survived.

See Ex Abbazia di s. Stefano in una mappa di dimensioni maggiori.

No trace remains of the belfry: a document of 1610 states that by then it had been struck by lightning. The building may be dated to the 12th century.
It is one of the most imposing of the very many edifices of the period. Like other churches of the period, it is perfectly oriented: the apse to the east and the façade to the west. The offset of the apse with respect to the centerline of the building and the two-door façade are evidence of a southward enlargement, which involved tearing down the right-hand wall (as you enter the church).

The very fine masonry, with its nicely worked blocks of very compact local limestone, demonstrates careful construction even of the expanded part of the building.

The barrel arch of a side door in the south wall dates the expansion to a time when the polycentric Gothic arch had not yet been adopted in the region, and thus the newest part of the edifice must date back to the first half of the 13th century.

Side door

The doors of the façade were carefully disassembled and reset; their original appearance is not recorded.
Thru the early 1980’s, on the inner face of the north wall, traces of color could still be seen on some slight chunks of surviving plaster; the springers of the three arches that once supported the ceiling cannot be identified.
Oral accounts collected in the 1970’s bear witness that the church was still in use for services around 1920, if only occasionally. A hunter remembers that in 1956 a bit of roof was still in place “towards the apse”: he took shelter under it during a downpour.

Further information

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Translated by Bill Thayer ©2010

09Z