The Chiesa Nuova is a church in Assisi, Italy, built in 1615 on the site of the presumed [1] birthplace of St. Francis, the house of Pietro di Bernardone. It was then called Chiesa Nuova because it was the last church to be built in Assisi at that time.
Assisi is a town and comune of Italy in the Province of Perugia in the Umbria region, on the western flank of Monte Subasio.
It was erected because, during a visit to Assisi in 1613, Antonio de Trejo, the Spanish Vicar General of the Franciscans, was saddened when he saw the original home of St. Francis becoming dilapidated. With the help of the Spanish Embassy in Rome and through a generous gift of 6,000 ducats by King Philip III of Spain, he was able to buy the house.
The ducat was a gold or silver coin used as a trade coin in Europe from the later Middle Ages until as late as the 20th century. Many types of ducats had various metallic content and purchasing power throughout the period. The gold ducat of Venice gained wide international acceptance, like the medieval Byzantine hyperpyron and the Florentine florin, or the modern British Pound sterling and the United States dollar.
Philip III was King of Spain. He was also, as Philip II, King of Portugal, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia and Duke of Milan from 1598 until his death.
Pope Paul V authenticated this purchase on 10 July 1615 and blessed the first stone. On 20 September 1615 this foundation stone was then brought, in a solemn procession, from the Cathedral of San Rufino to the building site. [2] The church was built under the supervision of brother Rufino di Cerchiara, who was perhaps also the architect. [3]
The church, built in late Renaissance style, features a high dome divided in coffers, with lantern and a drum. Such a caisson ceiling is a feature of Renaissance architecture. The plan is a Greek cross one, with nave and transepts of the same length, inspired by the church of Sant'Eligio degli Orefici in Rome, one of the few churches designed and built by Raphael. The church is decorated with frescoes by Cesare Sermei and Giacomo Giorgetti (17th century).
The Renaissance is a period in European history, covering the span between the 14th and 17th centuries and marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity. The traditional view focuses more on the early modern aspects of the Renaissance and argues that it was a break from the past, but many historians today focus more on its medieval aspects and argue that it was an extension of the middle ages.
A coffer in architecture is a series of sunken panels in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit or vault. A series of these sunken panels was often used as decoration for a ceiling or a vault, also called caissons ('boxes"), or lacunaria, so that a coffered ceiling can be called a lacunar ceiling: the strength of the structure is in the framework of the coffers.
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a percussion mallet, to produce sound. There is usually a resonance head on the underside of the drum, typically tuned to a slightly lower pitch than the top drumhead. Other techniques have been used to cause drums to make sound, such as the thumb roll. Drums are the world's oldest and most ubiquitous musical instruments, and the basic design has remained virtually unchanged for thousands of years.
The high altar was set over the room of St. Francis. One can also visit the shop where Francis sold his cloth and the stairwell in which Francis was imprisoned by his father. This is the place where Francis decided to answer the divine call and to renounce worldly goods.
The adjoining friary houses a museum and an important Franciscan library with many codices and rare books.
A codex, plural codices, is a book constructed of a number of sheets of paper, vellum, papyrus, or similar materials. The term is now usually only used of manuscript books, with hand-written contents, but describes the format that is now near-universal for printed books in the Western world. The book is usually bound by stacking the pages and fixing one edge to a spine, which may just be thicker paper, or with stiff boards, called a hardback, or in elaborate historical examples a treasure binding.
Saint Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, informally named as Francesco, was an Italian Catholic friar, deacon and preacher. He founded the men's Order of Friars Minor, the women's Order of Saint Clare, the Third Order of Saint Francis and the Custody of the Holy Land. Francis is one of the most venerated religious figures in history.
The Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Order of Friars Minor Conventual in Assisi, a town in the Umbria region in central Italy, where Saint Francis was born and died. It is a Papal minor basilica and one of the most important places of Christian pilgrimage in Italy. With its accompanying friary, Sacro Convento, the basilica is a distinctive landmark to those approaching Assisi. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2000.
Other uses of La Verna include: La Verna cave and Laverna.
The Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels is a Papal minor basilica situated in the plain at the foot of the hill of Assisi, Italy, in the frazione of Santa Maria degli Angeli.
Assisi Cathedral, dedicated to San Rufino is a major church in Assisi, Italy. This stately church in Umbrian Romanesque style was the third church built on the same site to contain the remains of bishop Rufinus of Assisi, martyred in the 3rd century. The construction was started in 1140 to the designs by Giovanni da Gubbio, as attested by the wall inscription visible inside the apse. He may be the same Giovanni who designed the rose-window on the façade of Santa Maria Maggiore in 1163.
The Sacro Convento is a Franciscan friary in Assisi, Umbria, Italy. The friary is connected as part of three buildings to the upper and lower church of the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi, where the friars custody with great reverence the body of Saint Francis. St. Francis wanted to be buried at this location outside of Assisi's city walls, called Hill of Hell, because his master Jesus of Nazareth also was killed like a criminal outside of the city of Jerusalem.
The chiesa di San Salvatore di Ognissanti or more simply chiesa di Ognissanti, is a Franciscan church located on the piazza of the same name in central Florence, region of Tuscany, Italy. Founded by the lay order of the Umiliati, the church was dedicated to all the saints and martyrs, known and unknown.
San Damiano is a church with a monastery near Assisi, Italy. Built in the 12th century, it was the first monastery of the Order of Saint Clare, where Saint Clare built her community.
The Church of Saint Gregory VII is a Roman Catholic parish church on the Via del Cottolengo in Rome dedicated to Saint Gregory VII. It was built by Mario Paniconi and Giulio Pediconi from 1960 to 1961, to serve a parish erected by Pope Pius XII in 1952. Its roof is held up by 10 concrete piers, and is structurally independent of the walls, which end before they reach the roof. It is a parish church, served by Franciscans; in the crypt is a depiction of the Life of St Francis of Assisi in an unusual stone inlay technique. San Gregorio VII has been a titular church since 1969. The current Cardinal Priest of the Titulus Chiesa di San Gregorio VII is Moran Mor Baselios Cardinal Cleemis Catholicos, the Major Archbishop of Trivandrum.
Chiesa di San Lorenzo in Panisperna or simply San Lorenzo in Panisperna is a Roman Catholic church on Via Panisperna, Rome, central Italy. It was previously known as "San Lorenzo in Formoso". It was erected on the site of its dedicatee's martyrdom. It is one of several churches in Rome dedicated to him.
Giotto di Bondone, known mononymously as Giotto and Latinised as Giottus, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the Gothic/Proto-Renaissance period.
The Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua al Laterano is a Roman Catholic titular church in Rome on Via Merulana, one block from the Obelisk of St. John Lateran. It was built for the Order of Friars Minor, who needed a new home after they were moved from Santa Maria in Aracoelito allow the construction of the Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II.
Saint Mary Draperis is a Roman Catholic Church in Istanbul, important for historical reasons. Established in 1584, the church is one of the most ancient Roman Catholic parishes of Istanbul.
The church of Santo Stefano is a medieval church of Assisi, in central Italy.
The Abbey of St. Peter in Assisi, Italy, is inhabited by a small community of monks belonging to the Benedictine Cassinese Congregation. They live according to the Rule of St. Benedict, summarized as "Ora et Labora".
The Church of Saint Francis of Assisi is an important church of Palermo. It is located near the main street of the city, the ancient Cassaro, in the quarter of the Kalsa, within the historic centre of Palermo. The building represents the main Conventual Franciscan church of Sicily. It has the title of Minor basilica.
San Michele e San Francesco is a renaissance-style, Roman Catholic parish church located in the Piazza SS Francesco e Michele in the town of Carmignano, province of Prato, region of Tuscany, Italy. It is best known for housing the Jacopo Pontormo altarpiece of the Visitation.
Cesare Sermei was an Italian painter. Son of painter Fernando Sermei, he learned to paint in the workshop of Cesare Nebbia, primarily moving between Orvieto and Rome.
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.