Italian artworks

Nonantola has ancient Roman origins but owes its fortune to the Lombards, who founded the Abbey of San Silvestro here in 752 A.D.. More precisely, it was St Anselm, the Lombard Duke of Friuli, who decided that in the Roman colony of Nonantula there should be a "twin" monastery to the one he had just founded in Fanano. Anselm acted on behalf of the Lombard king Astulf, his relative, who aimed to create a stable link between the Lombard lands of the North East and those of the South, bypassing the Byzantine territories. It is no coincidence that both the monasteries founded by Anselm are on the road to the Croce Arcana pass, an Apennine pass of strategic importance. Thus was born the communication route that today we call Via Romea Nonantolana Longobarda. Thanks to royal protection and the ability of Anselm, who chose it as his home, Nonantola Abbey soon established itself as one of the most powerful in northern Italy and became a leading cultural centre, with its own scriptorium. It consolidated its prestige by acquiring important relics, above all the remains of Pope Saint Sylvester and the Relic of the True Cross, and becoming a stopping place for the papal entourage during the pontiffs' journeys. In the Middle Ages, it promoted land reclamation in the Modenese plains, eventually managing some 400 square kilometres of land, including pastures, cultivated land and vineyards, rivers and fishing valleys. The abbey basilica, dedicated to St. Sylvester, has Lombard Romanesque forms dating back to the 11th century, clearly evident in the apse area. The façade has been reconstructed but the portal is original, with a lunette sculpted by artists from the Wiligelmo area. Beneath the raised presbytery is a vast crypt with 64 columns and capitals from the 8th-12th centuries. On the high altar is the ark of St. Sylvester. On the south side of the basilica is the monastery, with frescoes from the 11th-12th centuries in the refectory and a 15th-century courtyard with a double loggia from the 15th century. The complex houses the Benedictine and Diocesan Museum of Sacred Art and the Abbey Archives, with thousands of parchments and documents dating back to before the year 1000.

The basilica of Santa Cristina preserves the most ancient and spiritual soul of Bolsena, creating a contrast with the pleasantly carefree atmosphere of the village's lakefront and marina, crowded with small restaurants and bars. The Renaissance façade conceals a Romanesque interior and a much older foundation: the church was consecrated in 1077 by Pope Gregory VII, but its roots go back to even earlier times. In fact, it stands above the catacombs where, according to tradition, Saint Christina martyr was buried between the end of the 3rd and the beginning of the 4th century. For centuries, pilgrims travelling along the Via Francigena stopped here to pray in the Grotto of Santa Cristina, a portion of the ancient catacombs that was enlarged and converted into the basilica's crypt, with the saint's tomb. In 1263, it was here in the grotto that what the Church describes as the Eucharistic Miracle took place: drops of blood allegedly trickled from the consecrated host, testifying to the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the Eucharist and disproving the doubts nurtured by the officiating Bohemian priest. This is recalled by the fresco on the arch leading to the hypogeum, dating back to the 13th century: it is the oldest iconographic evidence of the miracle. Other important works of art adorning the basilica include a wooden Crucifix by the Umbro-Senese school from the 16th century, the 15th-century frescoes in the Rosary Chapel and its large tabernacle by Benedetto Buglioni (1493-97), and in the presbytery, a 15th-century polyptych attributed to the Sienese Sano di Pietro and Benvenuto di Giovanni.

The façade of the Basilica of Sant'Agostino in Campus Martius is majestic and sober, but it has allowed itself two side volutes. It thus reveals both its Renaissance origin and the 18th-century evolution of the church, completed in 1420, rebuilt sixty years later by Giacomo da Pietrasanta and Sebastiano Fiorentino, who enlarged it and "raised" it above the road to protect it from the flooding of the Tiber, and then restructured in the 18th century. In all cases, the work was commissioned by the Order of St Augustine, which previously officiated in the church of San Trifone in Posterula; this explains the double title, "Basilica of San Trifone and Sant'Agostino", sometimes used to refer to this church. The façade, today one of the symbols of the Sant'Eustachio district, was made using travertine recovered from the Colosseum, or so it is said. The interiors, on the other hand, are the result of a mid-18th-century redesign by Luigi Vanvitelli, who, in the same period, added the two side volutes to the façade, rebuilt the dome and bell tower, and redesigned the convent annexed to the basilica, which is still the headquarters of the Order of St. Augustine. At least three masterpieces have survived from the basilica's first season of life: the Prophet Isaiah frescoed by Raffaello on the third left pillar, from 1512; below it, the Madonna with Child and Saint Anne, a contemporary sculpture by Andrea Sansovino; and the highly venerated statue of the Madonna del Parto by Jacopo Sansovino (1521), on the counter façade next to the main portal. Three other fundamental works preserved in this basilica date back to the 17th century: the high altar, designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1627 and made by Orazio Torriani, with a Byzantine Madonna from the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople; the altarpiece with St.Augustine between Saints John the Baptist and Peter the Hermit by Guercino (1637); and above all, the altarpiece of the Pilgrim's Madonna (or the Madonna of Loreto) by Caravaggio (1603–04, in the first left chapel), considered scandalous because of the appearance of the Virgin, who has the features of a model well known in Rome at the time for her courtesan activities, her popular clothing and the realism with which the adoring pilgrim, whose feet are bare and swollen, is depicted. Caravaggio is said to have donated this painting to the basilica as a personal thank you to the Augustinian convent: here, in fact, he had found hospitality after wounding a man out of jealousy in nearby Piazza Navona, thereby avoiding arrest.