SHARRYLAND
Santa Maria sopra Minerva
A story of spirituality, transformism and legends
Where is
What it is and where it is
In the heart of Assisi, right in Piazza del Comune, there is a building that immediately stands out from all the others. It is the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, also known as the Temple of Minerva. A pronaos, slender Corinthian columns and a tympanum immediately identify it as a building from Roman times. A temple, to be precise. All that remains of the ancient building today is the marble pronaos and other elements brought to light by the latest excavations, such as the side walls and the embankment retaining wall.
Why it is special
It is a place that amazes and confuses. The square certainly does not look that ancient, and anyone who thinks of Assisi automatically connects it to the Middle Ages, the time of St. Francis. The Temple of Minerva, however, towers over us with its truth: this area was sacred long ago. But how did it come down to us intact? Simple, it adapted to the times, also becoming a prison and a municipal seat, until it became a place of Christian worship again. Quite a confusion that does not even spare its name: Temple of Minerva, derived from a statue found nearby, but apparently it was dedicated to Hercules.
Not to be missed
The interior consists of a Baroque-style nave adorned with gilded stucco, and of the altar that echoes the classical motif of the facade, all topped by the Francesco Appiani frescoed vault, a celestial sky populated with allegories. The contrast between the Baroque splendors of the interior and the weather-worn stones of the exterior makes the spirituality felt here unique, making it eternal, as befits what could be called the longest-lived sacred place ever to exist in the world.
A bit of history
Some rumors claimed that the temple of Minerva was erected eight centuries before the birth of Rome by Dardanus, a hybrid figure of Etruscan and Greek mythology. In reality, the temple was erected around the first century AD, on a site that was already considered sacred, perhaps because of some hot springs. After the fall of the Empire, it became the property of the Benedictine monks of Mount Subasio, and then in the thirteenth century it passed to the municipality, which used it as a prison; in the sixteenth century it returned as a church, dedicated to St. Donatus. A century later it became the church of S. Maria sopra Minerva, as we know it today.
Curiosities
Such a distinctive building was depicted several times in art. Giotto depicted it in the first of the frescoes of the Franciscan cycle in the Upper Basilica in the painting called "St. Francis and the Simple Man," but other distinguished artists and architects also drew it. Apparently it was a reproduction by Palladio that fascinated Johann Wolfgang Goethe, who during his trip to Italy could not resist the temptation and came to Assisi in contemplation on the morning of October 26, 1786.
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