User:Alessandro57/sandbox

Church of St. Francis
Chiesa di San Francesco
Exterior of the Church
43°06′35.71″N 12°47′26.8″E
Location	Nocera Umbra, Province of Perugia, Umbria, Italy
Denomination	Roman Catholic
History
Status	deconsecrated
Architecture
Architectural type	Church
Style	Romanesque, Italian gothic
Groundbreaking	1319
Completed	1497
Closed	1863

The former Church of San Francesco is a religious building that has become a museum. It stands in the centre of Nocera Umbra, Umbria, Italy.

History

The building was erected in 1319, when the Franciscan monks moved in from the monastery outside the walls, which had been destroyed by Frederick II of Swabia. The present-day structure of the church dates back to the last modification and renovation, which took place between 1494 and 1497, by the Lombard architect Antonio di Pietro da Castelrotto, who enlarged the already existing small Minorite monastery at the expense of the Palazzo dei Priori.

The façade, which opens onto Piazza Caprera, has two entrance portals: the first, in Romanesque style, is smaller and pertains to the first construction phase of the church, in 1319, when the friars obtained permission from Pope John XXII to build inside the city; the other, in Gothic style, larger and more polychrome, was built later, in 1386. An epigraph in Leonine verses, still walled up next to the portal, bears witness to these early extension works, which reads:

Si pacem tellus, coleret si bella silerent
nucerie trans muros hec nunc templa niterent
ne ve ruina desit neu queat igne dolore
hanc aulam francisce tuam cum plebe tuere
que foris existens fecit quandoque timorem
urbi intus surgens iam cepit ferre decorem
estque pro ante novo terreno corpore cincta
milletercentossex annos post octoginta

If the earth loved peace, if wars were silent,
this church would still shine outside the walls of Nocera.
May it not be destroyed by ruin or grieve by fire,
protect this church of yours, O Francis, together with your people,
which, when it existed outside the walls,
made people fear it from time to time.
Resurrecting within the walls,
it already began to give decorum to the city
and was girded with a new body in 1386

The interior has the appearance of a single, vast hall measuring 25 by 15 metres, divided into bays by five robust transverse pointed arches, in typical Umbrian style, and with three apsidal niches.

Interior.

The cloister, which stood at right angles to the church and occupied part of the square, was demolished around the end of 1800.

The first, almost entirely in the figurative style of Matteo da Gualdo and his school, began in 1497 and was probably completed around 1508. The second, which began around 1530 and covers the wall opposite the apse, was carried out during the episcopate of Varino Favorino from Camerino by masters from the Marche region, such as Venanzo da Camerino and Piergentile da Matelica.

In 1863, the church was confiscated from the friars and assigned to the Municipality.

Municipal Art Gallery

After decades of improper use, the former Church of San Francesco was restored in 1957 and since then has housed the Municipal Art Gallery.

It houses 15th- and 16th-century frescoes from the cathedral and works by Matteo da Gualdo; a fine Crucifix on wood from the second half of the 13th century, of the Umbro-Marchigiana School and the remarkable Polyptych of the Assumption by Nicolò Alunno from 1483.

References

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