Ascoli Piceno Italy

Cathedral of Sant'Emidio

The Latin crossed Cathedral has a nave and two side aisles, divided by six thick octagonal pillars in travertine supporting the wide cross vaults. Founded on the site of an ancient basilica, some historians believe it to have been erected on the ruins of the Roman Forum, whose traces can be seen at the foot of the apses and in the transept; others still on the remains of a temple devoted to Ercole. The Cathedral is a construction which has been refashioned many times, the result of continuous architectural changes. The most ancient parts are the cross nave and the domed presbitery with three apses, reputed to be of the eighth century. The construction of the spacious crypt, dating back to 1100, involved the elevation of the entire presbiterial floor. During the same period appear the two side towers, too, placed on the margins of the church, as certified by the epigraph in beautiful Latin characters written on a big parallelepiped in travertine, walled into the building nearby at road level, not too far from the entrance to the bishop's residence: Turre facta in anno Mil. mo sexagesimo nono - Incarnatione Dni Nri - + XPI Per indictione VII. The widening of one of longitudinal aisles bears the date 1482 with the inscription it was the desire of the bishop Caffarelli. The amplification of the interior of the temple to add the two aisles required the inclusion of two pre-existing towers into the new wings of the building. This work was completed under the bishop Camajani (1570). The design of the façade was in this way conditioned to a series of architectural elements the time superimposed. Upon the design of Cola dell'Amatrice the work went on between 1520-39. Rectangular shaped, the travertine façade is divided into three parts by four big Corinthian columns standing on large pedistals. The portal is imposing, embellished by a gabled cornice on which rises a smart balastrude added in 1592. Two lateral niches give to the whole a plastic, even though somewhat slim line.
The left side of Cathedral, overlooking the Battistero, is refined by wide pilasters, whose interstices are adorned with double lancet windows richly decorated in Gothic style. In this face is found the famous Porta della Musa, a precious expression of late Renaissance art, whose name derives from the Latin inscription carved on a small slab of travertine walled into the transept: Quod tenui, quodam nome renovata tenebo. Porta vocor Muse sic ego dicta prius. The inscription, without dating but attributed to eleventh-twelfth century, documents a widespread tradition off the time in which, upon the formation of a real school of Latin poetry of its own in Ascoli, it was believed that the Cathedral had been built on the remains of a temple dedicated to nine Muses. Out of necessity, the Cathedral has suffered from numerous alterations culminating with the suspension of the altars of side aisles last century. The work was done under the direction of Giuseppe Sacconi (1854-1915) who reordered the staircase entrance down below to the Crypt. Thanks to the considerable testamental legacy left by the bishop Alberani, who died in 1876, the Roman artist Cesare Mariani affrescoed the octagonal dome, the vaults of the aisles and the presbiteries with striking facts and episodes of the life of Sant'Emidio, as well as various paintings of Apostoli, Santi e Virtù. Mariani immortalized his patron in a portrait in the apse, above the choir. Above the main altar there is an imposing episcopal canopy, supported by four marble columns, made by Sacconi himself with decorations by Giorgio Paci (1820-1914).
In the right aisle is the Chapel of Santissimo Sacramento, dating to the first half of last century, made by Agostino Cappelli and Ignazio Cantalamessa. If the altar is adorned by a precious tabernacle of 1500 in golden painted wood, of uncertain attribution, as altar-piece we find the renowed Polittico by Carlo Crivelli (1430-1500), a distemper on a wooden board, in a valuable original Gothic frame. It was donated to the Cathedral by the bishop Caffarelli after having commissioned it to Crivelli in 1472. The big Polittico, cm. 364x280, represents Madonna in trono col Bambino in the centre, Santi Pietro, Giovanni, Paolo, Emidio on the sides. In the centre of the superior parts is Pietà, on the sides are Santa Caterina, San Girolamo, San Giorgio e Sant'Orsola. On the altar-step are Redentore benedicente e dieci Apostoli. The Polittico has recently undergone a restoration that has given it back its original beauty. Of considerable historical and artistic importance is Paliotto, a frontal embossed in silver foil, of the fourteenth century, put on the altar of the same Chapel. The twenty-seven panels representing the main episodes of Jesus' life are considered to be the most important pre-Renaissance sacred work of art.
The entrance to Sacristy is to the right of transept, constructed in 1420 with architraved cross vault. It conserves sumptuous furniture and works, amongst which a Bancone in walnut with 14 doors, splendid and finely decorated, dated and signed by Moys d'Antuerpia 1565; probably by the same artist is another Armadio in walnut with four doors, friezed with coats of arms in relief; other two Baroque Armadi can be seen and some canvases by Lodovico Trasi (1634-1694) and Andrea da Caldarola.
To the right of presbitery is the Chapel of Santissimo Crocefisso, which bears an image much venerated in the fifteenth century. To the left of presbitery is the Chapel of Madonna delle Grazie, on whose polychrome marble altar is a Renaissance tabernacle. In the centre of the niche is the miraculous Madonna delle Grazie, co-patron of the city and diocese. Set in a Baroque frame in gilded wood, it's a work of Pietro Alemanno's.
In the central tribune is the wooden Choir, made up of forty stalls divided into two rows: twenty-four in the superior one and sixteen in the lower, all decorated with delicate carvings of the fifteenth century. It's Giovanni di Matteo and his son Paolino d'Ascoli's masterpiece. Another notable work of carving is the Pulpit, set on the third pillar, carried out by Scipione Paris from Matelica (1611).