This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(October 2024) |
Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore | |
---|---|
46°04′07″N11°07′10″E / 46.0686°N 11.1194°E | |
Country | Italy |
Denomination | Roman Catholic |
Tradition | Latin Church |
Website | Santa Maria Maggiore |
History | |
Dedication | Blessed Virgin Mary |
Architecture | |
Architect(s) | Antonio Medaglia |
Architectural type | Basilica |
Style | Renaissance, Baroque |
Groundbreaking | 1520 |
Completed | 1524 |
Administration | |
Archdiocese | Trento |
The Church of Santa Maria Maggiore is an important place of worship in the city of Trento, and the site of the Third Session of the Council of Trent. It was built by Antonio Medaglia on the model of the basilica of Sant'Andrea in Mantua, at the wish of the Prince-Archbishop Bernardo Clesio. [1] In November 1973 Pope Paul VI accorded it the status of minor cathedral.
Traditionally, the foundation of the cathedral was attributed to St. Vigilius, the third Bishop of Trento, in the late fourth of early fifth century, but archaeological investigations between 1974 and 1978 and again in 2007–2009 have cast further light on the story of the building. In the Roman period, there were public buildings, including public baths, on the site where the cathedral was later built. [2] The original cathedral itself was built somewhat later than previously thought, in the late fifth or early sixth century, and had a large space divided into three naves. The chancel of this church, which was still in use towards the end of the tenth and eleventh centuries, contains traces of an opus sectile pavement dating to late antiquity, which was later replaced with a mosaic from the middle of the sixth century. [3]
Between the late eighth and early ninth centuries a number of building works were undertaken on the cathedral, in particular the addition of richly-decorated stone liturgical fittings, including a rood screen and a ciborium. In the late tenth or early eleventh centuries the old church was demolished, and its structure, including the Carolingian fittings, were used as building materials for a new church, smaller than the previous one. It had a semicircular central apse with two side-apses.
Evidence from a find of coins indicates that after 1290 a third church was built on the site of the previous one. This one had two naves ending in symmetrical apses. This building preserved, among other elements of earlier edifices, fragments of frescoes and parts of a Gothic fascicule semi-pillar at one of its entrances. In 1520, work started on the current church, at the direction of Bernardo Clesio. Between 1899 and 1901 further works and restoration modified the renaissance façade.
Santa Maria Maggiore was the site of the Third Session of the Council of Trent (1545–1563). [4] After archaeological and restoration works, the church reopened to the public in April 2012 and the altar was consecrated on 30 September 2012. [5]
The Renaissance church begun in 1520 is built in red and white stone. The main façade consists of an arched entrance in renaissance style with a door commissioned by Prince-Archbishop Cristoforo Madruzzo in 1539. [6] Above the door is a lunette depicting the Annunciation. The bell tower, 53 metres high, is the tallest in the city. Constructed of white limestone, it has two rows of three-mullioned Romanesque windows and a polygonal cupola. Beside the church stands a column erected in 1845 memorialising the celebrations for the third centenary of the opening of the Council of Trent.
The interior of the church consists of a single nave. Along the sides are a series of chapels with marble altars in the baroque style. There are also a series of altarpieces and the baroque sarcophagus containing relics attributed to Saint Clement. Of historical significance also is the series of paintings which depict sense from the Council of Trent and some of the main figures of the Counter-Reformation. The choir is at the north end of the presbytery and consists of a large gallery with bas-reliefs, held up by four finely-worked corbels.
On the chancel of the presbytery there is a Mascioni pipe organ, opus 402m, built in 1928, [7] which re-used the casing of the old 1536 organ. It was restored and widened in 1953 following damage during the second world war. The instrument is electrically powered and has three keyboards, each of 58 notes, 30 pedals, and a total of 58 registers. The casing, with a Serlian arch structure, displays the pipes in a single cusp on each side and three cusps in the centre.
Bernardo Clesio was an Italian Cardinal, bishop, diplomat, humanist and botanist.
Basilica of St. Mary may refer to:
San Martino ai Monti, officially known as Santi Silvestro e Martino ai Monti, is a minor basilica in Rome, Italy, in the Rione Monti neighbourhood. It is located near the edge of the Parco del Colle Oppio, near the corner of Via Equizia and Viale del Monte Oppio, about five to six blocks south of Santa Maria Maggiore.
The Archdiocese of Bologna is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church in Northern Italy. The cathedra is in the cathedral church of San Pietro, Bologna. The current archbishop is Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, who was installed in 2015.
Via dei Tribunali is a street in the old historic center of Naples, Italy.
Antonio Rossi (1700–1753) was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque or Rococo period, active mainly in Bologna.
The Archdiocese of Trento is a Latin Metropolitan archdiocese of the Catholic Church in the Triveneto, named after its see in Alpine Italy, Trento, in Trentino-Alto Adige region.
Santa Maria delle Vigne is a Roman Catholic basilica church in Genoa, Italy. It was built in the 10th century. The main altar was completed in 1730 by Giacomo Antonio Ponsonelli. The church is also the final resting place of the leading early Italian composer Alessandro Stradella, who was murdered in 1682.
The Basilica of San Giovanni Maggiore is a church in Largo San Giovanni Maggiore in central Naples, Italy.
The Palazzo della Compagnia dell'Arte dei Brentatori is a medieval palace located on Via de' Pignattari #11, starting at the Piazza Maggiore and running alongside the basilica church of San Petronio. It presently functions as the Hotel Commercianti, and a hotel at the site has existed for over a century.
Nepi Cathedral is a Neoclassical Roman Catholic cathedral located in Nepi, region of Lazio, Italy. It is dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and to Saint Anastasia. It was the episcopal seat of the Diocese of Nepi, later Nepi and Sutri, suppressed in 1986, and is now a co-cathedral in the Diocese of Civita Castellana.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Trento in the Trentino-South Tyrol region of Italy.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of L'Aquila in the Abruzzo, a region of Italy.
The Basilica of Santa Maria del Canneto, or Santa Maria Formosa, was a sixth-century Byzantine church erected in Pola under the patronage of Maximianus, bishop of Ravenna. The structure was damaged at the time of the Venetian sack of Pola in 1243, and building material was subsequently taken from the ruins and primarily incorporated into the Marciana Library and the Basilica of Saint Mark in Venice. Of the large, triple-nave church, comparable in splendour to the Euphrasian Basilica in Parenzo, only one of the lateral chapels survives. It constitutes the sole construction in Pola dating to the Byzantine period.
Crucifixion with Saints or Crucifixion with Mourners and Saints Bernardino of Siena, Francis of Assisi and Petronius is a 1583 oil on canvas, now in the church of Santa Maria della Carità in Bologna. The work was originally sited in the Macchiavelli chapel in San Nicolò di San Felice, Bologna, next to Santa Maria della Carità, which was destroyed by bombing during the Second World War. It was then temporarily moved to the Soprintendenza di Bologna and finally to its current home.
Paolo Prodi was an Italian historian and politician.