HISTORY
The church of Santo Stefano is located between the Bentivoglio’s fortress and the clock tower inside the walls of the town of Bazzano who had a central role in the defense of the whole western area of the hills around Bologna. The first document attesting its existence dates from 798 and shows the function that assumed the old church in political conflicts that occurred between Modena and Bologna for the certification of landed estate belonging to the two municipalities. While in the tenth century the church was under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Modena, in 1204 it passed under Bologna. These legal vicissitudes ended with the final transition to the jurisdiction of the Church of Bologna in 1398 at the behest of Pope Boniface IX. Over the centuries, the building was affiliated with other churches of greater importance: for example, in 1155, it belonged to Monteveglio’s parish and between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it was one of the properties of the church of Sant'Andrea at Corneliano. In 1573 however, with the increase in population density, it became an autonomous church assuming the dependencies of the parishes of Crespellano, Pregatto, Oliveto, Montemaggiore and Montebudello. Between the sixteenth and seventeenth century, the Bentivoglio’s fortress was rebuilt, and this operation involved also the church, which took on its current direction, with the apse to the west and the entrance to the east. This was followed by further action of alteration of the original structure: in the eighteenth century, for example, architect Francesco Tadolini enlarged it with the construction of the Blessed Sacrament chapel; it was then enlarged in the early decades of the twentieth century with the erection of the left aisle. The last intervention was carried out in connection with the bombings of 1944, when it was decided to recover the original shape of the structure: so the current facade, dating back to the restoration of 1945, recalls in particular the Romanesque style and in the same way the half-columns, capitals, and rose-window.
ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
After the discovery inside the church of one of the oldest artifacts currently surviving, probably a stone portal fragment in Lombard or Carolingian style, we cannot exclude a Byzantine origin of the structure. The church was, in fact, influenced by the Romanesque style, which leaves its traces for example in the presence of a fragment of sandstone capital decorated with a rosette with seven petals and shapes of lily, preserved today in the communal museum "Arsenio Crespellani" in the fortress of Bentivoglio. At that time, the building also had a typical Romanesque structure with a single nave and an apse facing east. Now the church has a tripartite nave with an apse facing west, with a flat front. Inside the church are exposed modern artistic works, such as the Santo Stefano of Simon Cantarini placed on the altar and some paintings of Gaetano Gandolfi.
HISTORY
The Romanesque parish church of San Prospero is located in Colecchio, a commune in the province of Parma, on a small hill overlooking the countryside. It was built in the 11th century in the Lombard Romanesque style, on the ruins of an ancient pagan temple. It was later dedicated to San Prospero, a Bishop who enjoyed a strong devotion in Reggio Emilia during the Middle Ages. According to several 14th-century sources, the Hospital of Santa Maria was quickly added to the parish church, run by the Capuchins and today home of the parish offices.
ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
The Romanesque parts of the church are difficult to distinguish today. There have been numerous interventions to the structure over the centuries that radically compromise its original appearance. The first restorations were in the 13th century: the expansion of the original plan and the construction of the raised choir, the three aisles, and the campanile. In the 15th century, there were further restorations, covering up the trussed roof, the construction of the vaults and the lateral chapels. In the 16th century, six chapels were added to the sides of the church, which were demolished in later restorations. The church did not undergo any further substantial restorations until 1922, when it was decided to restore the church to its original splendor. It was during that campaign that the façade was rebuilt, as well as a new Romanesque campanile, not attached to the church, and modeled on the tower at Parma’s Duomo. In 1935, the front was demolished and the old portal was inserted on the façade.
HISTORY
The rural church of Sant Pietro is already notable for its isolated position atop a hill in the important Apennine area of Tizzano Val Parma, where it dominates the vast surrounding area. This Romanesque church, cited for the first time in a document of 1004, was built in stone in the 11th century. It is a three-aisled basilica, with a tower located in the center of the façade, that has the function of both campanile and entrance. The presence of this massive tower makes the parish church of Tizzano a rare example within the Romanesque of the Po Valley of a clocher-porche, a church type primarily diffused in France.
ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
The church underwent radical modifications and numerous renovations between the 11th and 12th centuries, specifically in the replacement of the original three apses with a flat-terminating choir. The portal at the base of the campanile is the result of a 17th-century intervention, and the three lateral chapels were inserted later. All of these additions were completed in the same rustic Apennine stonework as the Romanesque church, giving the whole complex a uniform appearance. On the south side, there are some remains of the corbel tables that decorate the eaves. In the center of the south wall, a portal used to function as the principal entrance. Inside, restorations have revealed the trussed roof and the same bare stonework that gives the outside its rustic appearance. The nave is divided by five arcades resting on massive cylindrical piers, with chamfered-cube capitals.
HISTORY
Bazzano is a small Apennine village of the commune of Neviano degli Arduini, where the parish church dedicated to Sant’Ambrogio is found. The church was founded in the 6th century, and was mentioned for the first time in a document of 920. It was first referred to as a parish in 1004, when its Romanesque reconstruction was begun. The church had a notable role, particularly in 1230, when it assumed total jurisdiction over seven other chapels. During the 12th century, it was probably three-aisled, with a traditional orientation of the apse in the east, later changed to its present form during the reconstructions of the 16th and 17th centuries. It has been noted that despite the numerous radical transformations beginning in the 16th century, the original Romanesque plan of the 11th century is still visible under the Renaissance additions. However, since the church was not subject to the usual restoration campaigns of the 19th and early-20th centuries, one has to look a bit harder to decipher those Romanesque forms. Restorations carried out between 2001-2003 resolved the building’s grave structural issues.
ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
Recent excavations have revealed that the apses of the church were originally in the east where the façade is today. In the second half of the 17th century the orientation of the church was inverted. The ancient stone baptismal font is the principle element that attests to the building’s antiquity, octagonal on the exterior, a truncated cone on the inside. It is among the most precious remains of the Romanesque in Parma.
HISTORY
The small parish of Gaione in the province of Parma, dedicated to Saints Ippolito and Cassiano, has survived a long and complex history. Its ancient origins are as early as the 7-8th century, built in the early Middle Ages on the remains of a Roman structure. A small altar made of reused Roman bricks from this early building has been found. A Romanesque church replaced this early one around the 12th century; the first attestation of its existence in 1111. But beginning in the 17th century, the monument has undergone a series of renovations that have partially altered its original Romanesque appearance. The campanile, the choir and the south wall are from the most recent phase of restorations.
ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
The church has fortunately preserved its very simple façade, austere and unadorned, its rustic stonework exposed. In contrast with the south wall, the north side preserves some of its original cubed ashlar blocks. The church is a three-aisled basilica, with three semicircular apses in the east. Some 20th-century restorations cleaned up the wall, in alternating courses of brick and stone, most evident in the cylindrical piers that support the five arcades of the nave. Even the capitals, chamfered cubes, were made of the same materials. The church is covered in a wood-trussed roof. Unfortunately the original apses were demolished following the 18th-century reconstruction of the choir. Additionally, the pavement was lowered to its original level, with the intention of revealing the pier bases. Finally, in the course of the 19th century, the single lateral chapel was built, and the rectory was enlarged. Excavations conducted beginning in 1952 contributed to the reconstruction of the east apse and to the rediscovery of the round base of the original baptistery in the first bay of the nave on the north side of the church.
HISTORY
The parish church of Contignaco, dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, is perched on a crest among the hilltops of Salsomaggiore Terme, in the province of Parma, on the opposite side of the castle of the Pallavicino family. The Romanesque monument has its origins in the 12th century, having been cited for the first time in a document of 1179. It was later mentioned in a bull of 1196, and subsequently restored in 1391 by Iohannes de Saselinis of Parma, as recorded in an epigraph on the façade. In the Middle Ages, it was a particularly important monument for being a baptismal church and having jurisdiction over several other churches, functioning almost like a small diocese. The church was majorly rebuilt between 1781 and 1789 along Baroque stylistic lines, including the construction of vaults in the nave and aisles, and the addition of plaster and cornices. But restorations beginning in 1954 eliminated the plaster and the other Baroque interventions. Thus the church was able to recuperate that austerity and sobriety typical of the Romanesque style, bringing back the original wall surfaces of precise ashlar blocks, both on the interior and exterior of the structure.
ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
The gabled façade features a portal, above which sits a niche with a 14th century Madonna and Child sculpture. A square campanile sits to the south of the church. The semi-circular apse was probably demolished and substituted at some point. The three-aisled basilica is divided into three bays by round arches on square piers with no capitals. The one exception if the pier to the left, cylindrical with a chamfered cube capital. A small chapel in the right-hand aisle possibly functioned as the baptistery, distinguished by a vault and late-Gothic frescoes from the 15th century, which have been relocated to other locations in the church.
HISTORY
Close to the town of Coscogno (of Roman origin), sits the old Romanesque parish church dedicated to Sant’Apollinare. The first document attesting to the presence of the church is from 996, when Sant’Apollinare belonged to the castle of Chiagnano. Its function as parish church was recorded for the first time in 1035. The dedication to a Byzantine martyr from Ravenna has led some scholars to conclude, however, that the church was built before the end of Byzantine domination (7-8th c).
ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
The present-day appearance of the church is the result of work from 1648, a date carved on a panel high on the upper part of the building. At that date the façade was reworked and the choir and lateral chapels were built.
The façade portal from the 13th century remains in its Romanesque style, surmounted by a rare sculpted lunette from the 11-12th centuries, and embellished by two thin columns with capital and leaves that hold up a cornice decorated by pinnacles, and an architrave with sculpture set inside. The sculpted lunette, from the age of Matilda, depicts a fight between two dear, with one in front of the other and a stylized palm leaf between. The semicircular border was decorated by a braided frieze, of which only three small tracts remain at the edges. The lunette motif comes from the Burgundian culture that reached these kinds of places thanks to pilgrims, since Coscogno was a crossroads along the road that brought them to Rome.
HISTORY
The Romanesque parish church of San Silvestro sits in the middle of Fanano. Tradition attributes its foundation to Sant’Anselmo in 749, thanks to a concession of his cousin Astolfo, King of the Lombards. It was intended as a monastery and hospice for pilgrims traveling along the Via Romea, and was aconvenient stop in the Apennines between Tuscany and Emilia. With the church founded, Anselm decided to leave for Nonantola, where he built the celebrated Benedictine abbey. However the first documentation of the building is not until the 13th century.
Over the course of the centuries, the structure underwent several alterations, the most important of which was from the 17th century, when the original Romanesque appearance with crypt and raised presbytery was altered in order to change the liturgical orientation in favor of facing the façade to the west, where the surrounding town was growing.
ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
The church is three-aisled, terminating in a Baroque choir. At the beginning of the 20th century, restorations aimed to return the church to its original Romanesque forms. The bases of the crypt columns were uncovered, today visible at the main entrance. During this restoration, the façade was redesigned in a neo-Romanesque style, but in a completely arbitrary manner. The twelve columns along the nave remain from the original Romanesque church. The capital decoration includes zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figures, completed in a bare and basic style. The third capital on the right distinguishes itself for its original and fantastic ornamentation: four finely sculpted animal heads project from the angles and large serpents run around the abacus. The capital is dated 1206, probably when the church was consecrated. Some scholars have attributed these sculptures to masters of Campione, while others have suggested the influence of Antelami masters from Genoa.
HISTORY
The Romanesque church of Santa Maria Assunta at Rubbiano was probably founded in the mid-7th century, and is cited in acts of 880 and 908. Its fate is probably tied to its location along the Via Bibulica, the oldest and most important street linking Emilia and Tuscany that crosses the Apennines on the Radici Pass. The church probably acquired great prestige and prosperity beginning in 727 when traffic along the road picked up following the unification of the territory by the Lombards, who already occupied Garfagnana. When the Abbey of Frassinoro was founded in 1071, the church of Rubbiano diminished in importance.
ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
The church is on a small piazza, and still maintains its Romanesque style. On the exterior, pensile arches supported by figurative corbels crown the three apses, and are divided by a lancet window. A toothed cornice runs above the arches, and semicolumns lighten the structure, supporting capitals with vegetal and zoomorfic motifs. The 12th-century campanile sits next to the church.
Inside, the three aisles are separated by columns supporting capitals, volutes, cornices decorated with palm and acanthus leaves, lions and other animals, as well as human figures. There is also a holy water font from the 12-13th century, decorated by four female figures: two with the body of a siren and harpy legs. The font rests on a spoliated ionic capital.
HISTORY
The parish church of Santo Stefano in Tegurio is found near Godo, a few kilometers from Ravenna. Santo Stefano is among the churches commissioned by the empress Galla Placidia, who lived in Ravenna from 425-450.
The church in Godo was mentioned for the first time in an act of donation to the diocese of Ravenna in 963. The church underwent various modifications, and in 1700, it was completely reconceived in Baroque forms. The apse was demolished to enlarge the choir, the resulting church nine meters longer than the older one. New restorations were carried out in 1823 and the façade was also reconstructed according to Baroque taste. This structure remained unchanged until 1944, when German mines caused the collapse of the campanile, and the apse and choir were both destroyed. Four years later, the church was rebuilt according to its original forms.
ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
The reconstruction of 1948 faithfully repeated the original structure of the church, with the exception of the campanile, which was constructed anew. The sides are articulated with pilaster strips and six windows. The sloping façade is broken up by four pilaster strips that indicate the interior division into three aisles.
Although heavily rebuilt, Santo Stefano is a classic example of proto-Romanesque architecture, visible in the use of Lombard bands, the three aisles and the use of brick.
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