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TREVI, Italy – The Hermit’s Church

Church of S. Croce in Val dell’Aquila

itinerario giubilare

Now reduced to a miserable ruin consisting of a small wall barely sticking out of the ground, smothered in luxuriant vegetation, it can be reached only by tracing step by step a recently published guide,

Trevi: quattro passi tra storia e natura

, (itinerary no. 7).

Although the church was noted in ancient records, by 1988 no one was able to tell us where the surviving remains might be, when with Silvestro Nessi we went on several explorations of the mountainland of Trevi on a hunt for ancient settlements.

As a result of Nessi’s publication¹ which revived interest in the area, some inhabitants of Coste familiar with these woods showed us the ruins we see here; but later, vegetation having invaded the little path, the traces of the church were lost once again until they were rediscovered by Filippucci and Ravagli who described them in the guide mentioned above.

What’s left of the church and the abbey

For further details of

The Hermit’s Church — History

see the complete text published by Nessi.

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Note

1) S. Nessi, Dall’eremo al cenobio, insediamenti inediti nel territorio di Trevi, in Spoletium, Anno XXX, N. 33, 1988

Named after the first bishop and martyr, and Patron Saint of the town, the actual building was almost entirely rebuilt in 1893 on Neo-classical lines with echoes of the 1400s after a plan by Carimini.

All that remain from earlier churches are the three beautiful apses (XIcent),the delicately sculptured portal (XVc.) and the Altar of the Blessed Sacrament by Rocco da Vicenza (1522), and various XV and XVI cent. frescoes, a recently restored painted wooden crucifix, and two statues of St. Emiliano, one from the XVcent. and the one used in the processions (1751).

(Translated by Sheila Rylands 1998)

ST. MARTIN’S is at the end of a magnificently shaded tree-lined avenue with spectacular views sweeping the valley below. Completely surrounded by long- established evergreen oaks, it is part of the picturesque convent complex, San Martino; the church itself houses paintings from the Umbrian School ( Tiberio di Assisi and Mezastris )

The Chapel of St. Gerolamo on the left of the approach has one of Spagna’s masterpieces: a fresco of the Assumption with various saints (1512). In the convent refectory there is a well preserved Last Supper (1601) and in the cloisters numerous tondi (1612) by Ascensidonio Spacca

(Translated by Sheila Rylands 1998)

At an altitude of 585 m above sea-level, where olive groves give way to forest, we find this little church honoring St. Martin, similar to so many others in its construction, with an open belfry atop the façade and an archivolt framing the door. The asymmetrical façade is evidence of a later addition toward the south.

It remains consecrated; Mass is offered here every year on the saint’s feast.

S. Martino at the edge of the woods

The asymmetrical façade

The doorstep draws our attention: it is semicircular and was clearly made out of a millstone. Now there have never been mills at this altitude, but 200 meters behind the church a quarry can still be seen where two millstones have been roughly lined out for cutting.

The abandoned millstone quarry

Until the 1950’s this remote little church was graced by a magnificent mid‑13c tempera panel. Its removal from the area had fortunately been prevented, yet it is no longer in Manciano nor even in Trevi: it is now perfectly restored and its beauty shared with the world in the diocesan museum of Spoleto. The painting depicts the Madonna and Child; scenes from Christ’s passion and from the life of St. Martin occupy the four corners.

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This little church gives its name to a mountain hamlet east of Trevi, Coste di San Paolo or Coste San Paolo: enjoying a splendid view onto Trevi and the valley below, it is the last village on the road that climbs to the pass (1291 m) via Pettino (1074 m).

The barrel-vaulted church is built of exposed small block stone masonry. It is strictly oriented: that is, its apse points due east. The façade is surmounted by an open belfry.

It was restored in 1970, as is recorded on a plaque inside the church, thanks to the efforts of Father Bernardo Giacometti, a native of Coste, who at the time was the parish priest of Bovara.

Work is urgently needed to repair the roof, and the overall appearance of the building needs to be improved, since the church would be rather nice-looking if the heavy use of cement plaster did not give it right now a somewhat sad and unnatural grayish hue.

Inside, only one painting remains, on the right-hand wall: it dates to the early sixteenth century but has been extensively restored.

It depicts the Virgin enthroned with her Child, between St. Francis and St. Sebastian; a long inscription in two lines is now almost completely effaced. Surely at least one other image must have adorned the church, that of the titular saint; maybe on the wall behind the altar, which backs up onto bare earth and therefore has been the most damaged by damp.

In old documents this church is also called S. Paolo di Tergnole^.1 or di Atergnole^.2, and once served 20-30 families^.3, sharing this function with S. Maria di Pelano or S. Maria Vecchia.

All photo © f.s.2006

During the course of the 1970 restorations, inside the stone altar another altar was discovered, seen here to the right; it has been moved to another part of the church. The altar currently used is the one seen in the photo on the left: a travertine altar-table supported by an elegant little column from Antiquity of unknown provenance.

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Translated by Bill Thayer ©2010

101

Note

1) Sella, Pietro, 1952, Rationes Decimarum Italiae – Umbria, Città del Vaticano, nn. 6746 e 6921

Natalucci, Durastante, Historia … di Trevi, Todi, 1985, c.588.

2) ibidem, cc. 912, 1167

3) ibidem, c. 912

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

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