THE BENEDICTINE ABBEY OF S. MARIA DELLE MACCHIE
by Annalisa Paoloni
The romanesque architecture of Marche, developed int the 11th – 13th Centuries, finds one of its greater artistic expressions in the abbeys, independent monasteries (sui iuris) spread after the year 1000, in a consistent and numerical subtle way throughout the routes of journey and the flowing rivers following a weave of settlements without stretch-marks. In the varied landscape of Marche a considerable number of abbeys, of which a hundred is documented, seems to privilege the inner areas of the region, those mountainous and with hills, like in the case of the abbey of S. Maria delle Macchie, constructed throughout the fertile valley of Piastra, some kilometers of the inhabited San Ginesio, along the State road 78.
The consultation of the archives offers little and nonexistent information on the date of foundation that, as many local historians say, is located between the 8th and 10th Centuries, due to the ample use of Roman material in the filler of the crypt, whereas with much probability this one is posponed after the year 1000. A letter, dated in 1171 and known as the older referred to the abbey, according to recent studies wouldn’t in fact talk about this building, but about another one with the same name located in Gagliole, in the neighborhoods of San Severino. Finally, other documents of the 13th Century inform about the intervention of the authorities of San Ginesio in the election of the abbots, phenomenon that will continue in the successive centuries and that speaks about some economic aspects, like for example the concession of earth rent out abbesses to the tenant farmers. At the beginnings of the 16th Century this one was given on loan and finally left in 1848, after doubtful returns and distances of the benecditines priests, due to the well-known napoleonic suppressions.
The architectonic structure of the abbey complex has undergone radical transformations due to the reorganizations carried out due to habitability exigencies, in 1658 by the cardinal commander Pallotta. The façade of the church is raised and finished with a curved tympanum whereas the original rosette that gave to the outside, of which is left tenuous tracks, was blinded and in its place were opened four windows. A careful reading of the pamphlet shows, nevertheless, the originate brick arched lintel of the portal and some marble fragments in the friezes and volutes, inserted, that show their Roman origin. The unique plant of the nave of the church, now covered by trough vaults, and the strong elevation over the crypt of presbytery, to which they were leaned, always in the 17th Century, two ample chapels, leading to an evident medieval plant design.
The crypt has a greater artistic interest, this one conserves intact the original characteristics of the primitive construction, whose analysis allows to date it in the 12th Century. The space of vast dimensions is subdivided in seven aisles, covered with cross vaults over brick columns finished in capitals, supported in collarinos of identical form of cone trunk with round angles, absent of decoration except for two that present vegetal and animal decorative motifs. The massive presence of materials of the Roman period, evident in the ionic capitals and the marble pillars that surround the altar, confers great preciousness and sacredness to the space, creating a type of ‘sacred enclosure’ where a milestone makes the function of column, placed in the antiquity throughout the consular street Flaminia, with an inscription in praise of the emperor Costanzo II (337-361) commanded by governor Pisidio Romolo. The particularitity of the finding is, in the end, accentuated by the interesting upside down linked capital, recently identified like an omphalos, decorated with a figurative motif in relief representing two confronted sphinx that support a leg over a thymiaterion and with a pair for oxen in the sides. |
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