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CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA IN LAPIDE
The entire community of Montegallo takes its original name of Mons Sanctae Mariae in Lapide from this monastic settlement. The castle of Balzo, the ancient administrative centre of the area, stood upstream of the monastery and significantly appeared already at the only position of the cenobio (a community of monks gathered under the same rule) on one of the landmark directrixes of the area, as a further testimony of its clear value as a crucial point. The architectonic reality of S. Maria in Lapide constitutes the first and necessary point of reference for a survey on the building of ancient Montegallo. The symbolic value of this ancient presence goes beyond its institutional and religious nature and suggests a vivid connection to the dynamics of the life and culture of the people of the place.A superficial survey of the current arrangement of the church, of which the chevet and some valuable building and decorative components of the façade (which has disappeared) remain and of the sides (also lost) of the only nave, S. Maria in Lapide was involved in a building campaign that brought about its almost total reconstruction in the second half of the XV and XX centuries. Perhaps the epigraph which can be observed even today in the external walling of the transept belongs to this building phase. The epigraph passed on, according to Leporini (1973), the date, no longer legible, of the construction of the present building, 1491.Judging from the workmanship of the decorative components of the disappeared façade, with particular reference to the main entrance portal, the building warranted the work of the Lombard craftsmen, who were particularly active at the time in the town of Ascoli and the district. These craftsmen, far from impressing a distinctive character on the inside of the church on the basis of their distinct style and background, limited their creative intervention to the defining components of the organism. These components are inserted into an architectural context which can be traced back to a building tradition that was well-rooted in the Piceno district, a tradition that was all of a piece with the civilising work that the Benedictine monks were profuse in. In the very first years of the XI century the first bell-attic towers rose up, or rather those multi-floored bell towers witnessed to on the fronts of the facades of churches that act as attic to the entrances to the churches themselves. It is obvious that in such a solution a very obvious commingling between the different needs imposed by a representative isolated organism is carried out, both on a symbolical level as well as on a level of concrete and effective use: instruments of calling (the bells), instruments of control (the slits), a place that collects goods (the intermediate floors between the bell cell and the base area), instrument of prayer, protection, meditation (sometimes a frescoed chapel is housed on the ground floor). Then the distinctive features that make S. Maria in Lapide, beyond its undoubted historical-architectural value, a true unicum building, are not lacking: see in particular how the transept presents itself as a compact and imposing complex that does not limit itself to housing the corresponding rooms of the church, but presents itself divided into several floors, housing other spaces obtained in elevation in comparison to the structure of the church itself. Evidently, an extraordinary fusion takes place between representative values and living and defensive needs: a union that cannot help but exercise a substantial and immediate charm.It is the already underlined position of the settlement, in a place that is visited yet without any defensive apparatus, that suggested a similar union between a properly sacred architecture and a civil architecture, a union that on the other hand finds solid roots in the same ideology of the Western medieval Church, which put itself forward as an impassable fortified organism and that sees in its representatives likewise many soldiers at the service of the All Powerful (milites Dei).The inexistence of a typically feudal dwelling design, with a control network pivoting on the noble fortified residences, had transformed the same monastic dwellings into district strongholds of clear strategic-defensive value, and had had an in influence on the simple parish churches, turning them too into a possible fortified refuge at the service of the inhabitants and to protect their property.Apart from the final throes of war activities linked to the consolidation and to the expansion of the Ascoli borough and the successive power struggles that heavily punctuated the warlike Piceno town – wars and struggles that brought about hotbeds of fighting throughout the entire district - a curse that characterised the daily life of a town like Montegallo was the bands of brigands that sowed theft and destruction along their way. Banditry was still a powerful phenomenon at the end of the XVI century and only the work of Sisto V was able to reduce it. It is fascinating to imagine how in this context the “scampanio” (ringing of bells) could offer a valid instrument of defence. The ringing of bells took place in moments of danger from those Churches that like S. Maria in Lapide dotted the plains and settlements, calling all the men to unite against the hordes captained by the various Toms, Dicks or Harrys. The architecture
The floor plan in the form of a Latin cross with single nave that joined the surviving transept, the presence, above all in the concluding side, without apse, of elements suitable to guarantee the control of the area and the defence of the insertion (slits, posterns, brackets to support mobile contrivances), all refer back to an architectonic culture that was well spread in the Piceno hinterland starting from the X century.The main characteristic of the building is given by the lack of the frontal body, so that the current church consists of the chevet of the original structure. Formed by a floor plan in the form of a commissa cross (or Tau cross), S. Maria in Lapide presented the main body of the church with a single nave inserted into the surviving presbyterial complex, characterised by a broad overhanging transept and central cupola. Several decades ago, the stonecutter Ignazio Mariotti of Balzo rebuilt the lost nave reusing in the façade the original rose window and the portal, which had previously been walled up in the curtain wall of the triumphal arch. The old perimeter wall was still usable thanks to the traces that are still legible today: the low rows worked as rusticated ashlars of the old right flank. On one of the reconstructed flanks a single lancet window was put to use again, and an analogous single lancet window was carved and prepared especially on the opposite side. The static imbalances due to the precarious condition of the foundations – those selfsame imbalances that had caused the disappearance of the old structure – threatened the new building and the competent Sopraintendenza did not hesitate to abolish it by virtue of its very recent construction. It was in this way that the church took on its present appearance, with the fort dominated by the triumphal arch once more walled in with cement. The rose window, the portal and the single lancet windows were placed inside the church after restoration work.
The left arm of the transept is formed by a building that replaces the original structure. The wall of the frontal is formed by a normal system of sandstone ashlars and is crowned by a gorged cornice. The entrance that can be seen and that today constitutes the only access to the church, is surmounted by an epigraph of obvious documentary value: TEMPORE R(reverendissimi) D(omini) CAROLI/RUBEI PRAEPOSITI ET D(ominorum) /HYACINTI ET LUCIDI DE/ANTOLINIS DEPUTATO/RUM AN(n)O JUBILEI MDCL (This work was carried out in the time of the very reverend prevost Carlo Rubei and of the administrators Giacinto e Lucido De Antolinis in the year 1650). In 1650, then, the remaking of the northern block of the transept was completed. At the time the nave must have already disappeared given that the new building unites a fragment of the left flank and in that same epoch the longitudinal arched window on the frontal side of the lantern must have been opened, corresponding to the hall ceiling.The XVII century structure reused, in the frontal and the rear side, three stumps of an epigraph pertinent to the older arrangement: TEMPORE […]/HUISU ECCLESI[a]E S(an)C(t)[a]E MARI[a]E DE LAPIDE N[…]. Unfortunately, exposure to rain has completely worn away the upper line and the end of the lower line in the two front stubs. According to Leporini, who saw the church in the early seventies, the final part of the lower line carried the date 1491. While putting forward some perplexities due to the N that is clearly legible even today in place of the initial number of the chronological indication testified to, the analysis of the old architectural components lead us to the second half of the XV century.Let us analyse the elements of architecture currently conserved within the building. The single lancet windows, with carefully faceted embrasure, are oblong and crowned by an internal round archivolt that includes a trilobed field. The rose window, surrounded by a double archivolt, is formed by a spoke pattern of ten octagonal small columns that have capitals decorated with stylised acanthus leaves, terminating in a system of Roman arches including trilobed fields. At the centre, the hub of the rose is formed by a circular four lobed field surrounded by a denticulate archivolt.United by the motif of the archivolt in relief, including a three lobed field, the decoration highlighted up to now does not diverge from other models of medieval Ascoli architecture, offering a simplified version (the single lancet windows) of the big windows typical of convent churches, and linking itself in an obvious manner (the rose window) to the characters and modules of architectonic sculpture of the XIII century churches, with slight stylistic updating that is evident above all in the configuration of the little columns and archivolts.The characteristic entrance portal is a separate matter, distinguished by a pleasing and updated modulation of forms. Unlike the rose window and the single lancet windows, it attracts attention by virtue of its pronounced renaissance imprint. The hall opening is squared by three sloping fascias, bordered from the inside to the outside by fine pricking, by a fusarole and by a gorge framed by a listel. The fascias of the piers are decorated with lush garlands (plant volutes) of flowering acanthus and are surmounted by elegant history-painted corbels. Among the volutes of the corbels the lintel develops, with two festoons that stand out to the sides of a central coat of arms. The original cornice that should have completed the whole is missing.Made to replace an older portal, presumably in line with the stylistic characteristics of the rose window and single lancet windows, or linked to a certain group of stone-carvers who worked in the yard at the same time, the portal of S. Maria in Lapide certainly forms a work of highly skilled workmen from outside, undoubtedly belonging to that vast circle of Lombard workmen that operated in the area of Ascoli between the XV and XVI centuries. The moulded light, the plant volutes of the piers, the corbels and the festoons on the lintel, all form part of a decorative classical language, reflecting with some originality of effect a glimmer of the splendours of Urbino in this solitary church in the high area of the Fluvione. The delicate worth of the reliefs recalls the manner of Benedetto da Maiano as Leporini rightly underlines and fits in perfectly to the decorative culture of the area of Ascoli during the period between the last years of the XV century and the first decade of the XVI century, when in fact there was a re-proposal of modules and shapes deriving from Renaissance Urbino, modules and shapes imported thanks to the precious work of the itinerant workmen: thus in the portal of the church of S. Maria del Lago (consecrated in 1502), Palazzotto Bonaparte (with portal dated 1507) and also the portal of Via Mercantili 28, where we can find a lintel decorated with symmetrical festoons.The combined presence of traditional local stylistic motifs and elements that represent instead the work of craftsmen obviously from outside the area well expresses the complexity of the artistic culture of the district of Ascoli between the XV and XVI centuries, where occasional work by stone carvers that brought in elements of style and motifs of obvious formal relief are placed within contexts dominated and characterised by the work of native workmen that perpetuated modules and details of Roman and Gothic ancestry.Decorative elements of the Gothic kind are met in the same chronological compass in nearby Forca and Corbara, as well as in the portal of the parish church and in Palazzo Branconi at Balzo. The latter re-uses cornices and windows of one or more XVI century houses of the old nucleus of fortified houses on the Monte: an obvious sign locally of the enduring nature locally until the first half of the XVI century of those XIII-XIV century elements of style that are emphatically re-proposed emphasis in the rose window and in the single-lancet windows of S. Maria in Lapide. Comparisons of work of a renaissance touch that can be traced back with a certain probability to the intervention of itinerant craftsmen are not lacking: the two corner windows of the house at Forca dated 1522, the portal of the Church of S. Angelo di Castro (1556), the internal structure of the Church of S. Savino d’Uscerno (dated 1568), the door of the main room and the story painted front window of the priest’s house at Uscerno (dated 1569) and the inscribed window of the house at Uscerno dated 1571.In the north body built in the XVII century no particular signs stand out. On the wall of the counter facade, above the entrance portal, the opening of a circular window can be seen. All around the signs of a now missing false ceiling can be seen, formed by a barrel vault with lunette and set on archstones. The communication arch with the presbytery appears lowered and re-embedded compared to the original light. The arches of the presbyterial square still show three of the four original surbases of a rather classical style, formed of a cove, a listel and a gorge. The archivolt of the triumphal arch which can still be seen today from the outside is fitted into a cornice formed by two listels and by a central astragal. The dome, typical of Renaissance Marian churches, offers the usual scheme of the panelled arch on a hexagonal base and is joined by flat crowned high pendentives. The drum is topped by a stone gallery sustained by linking profiled brackets. The springer of the calotte has a moulded cornice. The practicable gallery of the dome carries references of the one which can be seen in the church of S. Francesco in Ascoli, where the completion work on the presbytery was carried out by Lombard workmen starting from the middle of the XV century. An analogous configuration is displayed by the bracketed cornice that crowns the external perimeter of the church, also in Ascoli territory, of S. Maria del Lago, it too built by Lombard workmen and consecrated in 1502, to then be separated from Sangallo in the new configuration of the Malatesta Fortress.
The altar wall is characterised at the centre by a niche framed by an aedicula of a weakly renaissance imprint. In the frieze a fresco can be seen with the Trinity flanked by two Angels that pay homage to them. The tympanum is surmounted by the image of the Assunta in heaven in a gloria of angels. The composition then develops over the entire wall following a clear proposal of a monumental scheme.The terrible state of conservation does not allow an accurate analysis of the fresco, however a rather elementary phasing can be seen in the figures in the left foreground which is not lacking in efficacy and which plays on the sharp chromatic juxtaposition or on an insistent movement of the drapings, even if it does not hide a hastily and popularly physiognomic rendering. What’s more, it seems possible to recognise in the whole an ambitious reworking of the beautiful Assunta painted in the middle of the XVI century in the Tempietto della Madonna del Sole at Capodacqua, and clear references to the XVII century decorative apparatus of the church of S. Maria in Pantano: the role of the image of the Eternal Father in gloria can be seen in particular. The brushstroke details and the features of the central aedicula suggest a date around the middle decades of the XVII century.The southern arm of the transept, which keeps its old configuration, presents an exquisite cross vault with faceted ribs set on curled archstones and declining at the centre in a large four-petalled double flower. The same configuration must have been observable in the symmetrical north arm before it was rebuilt. Analogous ribbed vaults where carried out in Ascoli until the XV century: see those for example in the transept of the church of S. Francesco. The observations developed on the portal and on the gallery of the dome easily suggest close points of contact with the architectonic activity in Ascoli in the last years of the XV century and the early years of the XVI century and could at this point imply that in S. Maria in Lapide the same Lombard workmen may have worked alongside a group of local stone carvers.From the analysis carried out up to here it is deduced that the original nave, covered by exposed trusses, was pitched on a chevet without apse, domed on the presbytery and with a false ceiling on the arms of the transept. We now come to the analysis of the components of the structure that are not inherent to the place of worship. Let us stay with the southern block of the transept. This is an unusual component and of great visual effect thanks to its verticality and its passivity of genuine roman resonance.The building is subdivided into five floors. Let us observe the south front. At the bottom, a protruding brick belt, crowned by a torus acts as stylobate to the wall. Within this low belt two slits can be picked out that illuminate a room under the flooring of the church. The stylobate is surmounted by two symmetrical windows with rectangular light and with carefully faceted jambs that give light to the right arm of the transept. Two simple rectangular windows with moulded window sills that were originally symmetrical to another two windows that no longer exist pick out the two floors of the church house above the transept of the church. To the side of the window on the first floor of the dwelling a small niche can be noted, crowned by a trilobite arch of Moorish flavour, probably inspired by a goldsmith’s object and certainly destined to frame a lost fresco. On the tympanum at the top the remains of the perches of the dove house that was originally housed in the ceiling can still be seen.It is to be underlined that the wall with two floors of symmetrical windows and dove house at the top matches the church house at Uscerno (dated 1569) and the Bonelli house at Corbara (XVII century) too, bearing witness to the continuance in civil architecture of aesthetic and building schemes that were already established in the church representing the community.This formidable multi-floored structuration has no comparison and forms the element that most characterises our church. The southern body thus conceived, assimilates the arms of the structure with the typical medieval towers formed of superimposed floors and is therefore linked to the residential model that is just as typical of the medieval tower house. The explicit living function of the two top floors highlights the typological dictates of the romanic model of Pedara, and puts us before us a unique case of church-house-tower.It is really the multi-floored structuration of the arms that within the church imposes the false ceiling work of the wings of the transept that consisted in single volumetric units obtained within the respective structures, unlike the classic conformity between room and body. The room obtained under the flooring of the church, with a normal barrel vault on the N-S axis of the chevet, was originally accessible only from the outside and it was only later on that it was transformed into a crypt connected to the church by a stairway only recently identified in the transept. The height of the building apparatus does not justify therefore placing it in the IX century, but with the simple original use of the room, turned without doubt into to a cellar to serve the dwelling above it. This dwelling was accessed as today by an open secondary door on a rise on the western front of the southern arm. The remains of the fireplace that are seen on the inside frontal wall are the only elements that stand out of the original set up of the dwelling itself. Worthy of note though is the narrow staircase that connected the lower floor of the dwelling with the surrounding terrace at the summit of the dome of the church. Characterised by an archaic stepped roof, this suggestive connecting stairway first and foremost gave access to the gallery that runs within the dome above the tambour. Walking along the gallery it is still possible today to reach a door that communicates with a room obtained from the north arm of the structure. Continuing along the staircase a landing obtained at the north-eastern corner of the body of the building joined to the bell gable, and that forms an integral part of the north arm rebuilt in the XVII century. Next to a simple rectangular window an unexpected slit is observed (the opening is made in a facing so as to give shelter while firing the arms) that watches over the roof below (a further shooting slit is seen externally at the extreme opposite of the wall).Keeping close to the bell gable the staircase leads finally to the floor that originally ran around the dome without any covering (the present one is an arbitrary addition due to recent restoration). Walking on this terrace it was possible to make use of the two slits open in the west wall, and that allowed the roof of the ancient hall of the church to be controlled. The bells were activated on this terrace too. From what is described, one is dumbfounded. An ingenious system of connection allowed, along just one route, to pass along the gallery of the dome, to watch over the roofs with the help of the purpose-made slits and to ring the bells. It is a living-defensive system worthy of a small fortress. Just going up a few steps it was possible to patrol, shoot and ring: the bells could evidently also be used as an instrument of warning in case of danger. It is worth remembering how it was the bells in rural churches that were often eradicated by brigands and by bounty hunters to stop them being used as a method of warning and exhortation in the case of raids and attacks. The use of the bells to call the inhabitants to form up against the hordes of brigands that continued to infest the district in the XVI century is clearly testified to.The end wall of the building, slightly disturbed by the XVII century redesign of the north arm, rectilinear and peremptory, shows wonderfully well the wide range of meanings and functions of this extraordinary monument. At the centre the other gable with the chiming of four bells set out in two rows, the minor at the top. Under the gable, the remains of the brackets that supported a mobile gallery that linked the two side wings.The external brackets that can be seen are similar to the gattoni of fortified architecture; they echo the internal gallery of the dome and therefore take part fully in the play of matching and of reference between structure and ornamental form. It is to be remembered that one of the bronzes of S. Maria in Lapide, decorated with an original epigraph in gothic lettering, dates back to the XV century.
The living complex of Santa Maria in Lapide In front of the building and alongside its right side there are the elements of a small but effective working and productive body. Near the now disappeared right flank of the church a typical agricultural annex on two floors is noted with the byre below and the hayloft above, which sees the reuse of an upturned ashlar carrying the date 1706. In front of the church, to the left, a building is seen that presents on the ground floor an easily-recognised door of a blacksmith’s forge. Photos:
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