S. Maria di Collemaggio, 14c fresco
As promised yesterday, a site on the Churches of L’ Aquila is on its way: the orientation page is now up. For now, a photosampler of the 13 that I saw. The site will be expanded to cover at least some of the churches in their own pages.
Of these 13 churches, five are gravely damaged, including S. Bernardino da Siena, where the saint is buried. A sixth church, the most important in town both historically and artistically, the Basilica of Collemaggio, site of the first Catholic Jubilee and burial place of Pope Celestine V who instituted it, was apparently only slightly damaged, with both façade and papal tomb unscathed. The seven others, I have no information yet.
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As many will know by now, the Basilica of S. Maria di Collemaggio was also severely damaged; the façade was spared because encased in scaffolding for cleaning and minor restoration, and Pope Celestine’s casket and remains because encased in his elegant (and large) funerary monument — no word on the monument — but the interior of the church is open to the sky now, much of the back of the building having collapsed into it. This is still not as bad as it could have been; what we had was not pristine Romanesque, but the result of a previous restoration after the earthquake in 1703, and the space was a cleanly functional arrangement of large stone blocks, which will be relatively easy to restore. The walls, where the paintings are and the fresco I show above, seem to have come out OK, although, incredibly, news is still sketchy.