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CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA IN PANTANO
The church stands on a plain at 1159 metres above sea level. Isolated among the woods and the mountains, it is a place of great charm. Its solitary position at a rather high altitude and the absence of any notable road links can be misleading about the role and the meaning of such a construction and so it is necessary to highlight the presence of a spring from which the characteristic place name “Pantano” comes. It should also be remembered that until the early years of this century the church was the backdrop to a fair that drew the people who lived in the surrounding areas. In point of fact, the church of S. Maria in Pantano is the location of one of the historic trans-apennine passes of the Piceno territory and therefore constituted a privileged destination and an obligatory point of reference for pilgrims, simple travellers, labourers, shepherds and merchants. Its current situation of isolation and substantial abandon is no more than one of the evident consequences of the demographic and socio-economic impoverishment of the mountains and the areas at the foot of the mountains that has come about in the course of this century. Not only has migratory movement brought about the abandon of old towns but also the slow suppression of a system of reference points that interconnected the territory through a web of places, events and routes that slowly disappeared from the scene or survived in their enigmatic solitude: such is the destiny of our church. We know nothing for sure of its origins. Information about the foundation of S. Maria in Pantano thanks to the work of the Ascoli bishop Audere or Auclere (745-780) is not substantiated either by documentation or by historians. Capponi (1898), who was the first to put forward this idea, does not support it with any elements. The oldest testimony of S. Maria in Pantano remains therefore the confirmation of its jurisdiction on “granciam de Pantano” present in the diploma granted by Federico II in 1223 to the abbess Margherita of the monastery of SS. Matteo ed Antonio in Campo Parignano, Ascoli. Given the uniqueness of the place name in the territory of Ascoli and in the neighbouring areas, the grange of Pantano probably refers to the place under consideration. S. Maria in Pantano would thus appear to be an integral part of a pattern of settlement typical of the Cistercian movement. A grange was in fact an agricultural unit set up in a territory of which it then became an economic and organisational stronghold and formed the typical unit of the Cistercian expansion process. At the beginning of the century, the ruins of the buildings that helped the surviving church fulfil its important role could still be seen. The ancient fair of Santa Maria in Pantano took place on the third Sunday in July and dated at least from the XVII century thanks to a concession granted by Pope Innocenzo XII in 1694. No other elements of historical evaluation are available at the moment. The many times referred to chronology of the building in the high Middle Ages is based on the only information reported by Capponi concerning the presumed founding that took place in 780. Certainly an older church than the present one must have existed, but there is absolutely no evidence or testimony of this. It would be useful in this regard to carry out an archaeological survey of both the internal and external areas of the church with the aim of reconstructing the articulation of the original complex.
As can be easily inferred from an analysis of the right flank, the church presents four distinct constructive elements. The front galilee with three spans, clearly a later development, adheres to the façade of the building and on the floor above houses a dwelling for the curate who administrated the church in its last phase of administrative and religious vitality. The chimney on the left pitch of the roof is definitely characteristic. On the back-front stands the gable, rebuilt at the beginning of the century, with the ancient bronze bell that was cast in the XV century characterised by reliefs of the Crucifixion, of Our Lady with Child and of S. Antonio Abate, all enriched by an original epigraph in gothic lettering. The porticoed body is followed by the block which corresponds to the first two spans of the main body of the church. On the right flank, interrupting a cornice which curiously runs at a certain height of the wall without identifying a base line or springing line, a portal is profiled with engraved lintel surmounted by a smooth ashlar; it in turn is crowned by a recovered cornice that is not well-proportioned to the door posts. The epigraph reads: SA(nc)TI DEI GENITRIX SUB TUU(m) PRESIDIU(m) CONFUGIMUS (O Mary Mother of God, we draw together under your protection). The following two lines set out the abbreviated names of all those (more than 10 people) who contributed to the execution of the work (not only the portal but the reconstruction of the whole nave). In the middle of the second line the date in which the work was finished, 1704, can be read. Immediately after the portal, at the height of the third span, the external structure rises up slightly, connecting itself to an older building which forms the wings of the presbytery. The upper parts have been retouched, but the old building is clearly separated from the XVIII century intervention by virtue of a higher degree of accuracy in the weaving of the rows and in the rendering of the corners, formed by stacked ashlars of a discreet size well-smoothed on the quarry face. Of particular interest are the two masonry double-lancet windows which are mid-wall on the right flank. Although of medieval style, they stand out for their dimensions and the rendering of their framing, set in a context that provides no trace of evidence that would help to date them to the medieval period. Rather, the single-lancet windows under consideration recall the analogous openings recognisable in older examples of XVI century residential building present in the territory of Montegallo. The sacristy stands out behind the wings of the presbytery and closes the building in the area behind the high altar. Inside, the presbyterial span concentrates elements of notable historic-artistic interest. The altar, with its front similar to a volute is painted with geometric and floral motifs to give the impression of the presence of a small altar piece. The vault, the side walls and the wall at the back are frescoed with the work of Martino Bonfini from Patrignone. The paintings date back to the second decade of the XVII century.
On the side walls, divided into two registers, “Four Scenes from the life of Maria” can be observed, flanked higher up by four Sybils and lower down by four prophets of the Old Testament. The back wall is painted and is dominated by the Eternal Father flanked by a Gloria of angels. The vault, almost illegible, offers an elaborate play of bays of mixed lines that culminate at the centre in a circular field. In the side gables of the vault, at the join with the surrounding wall and centrally placed, two panels on a red background carry, on the left, a list of names (probably of those who commissioned the work) and on the right the painter’s signature (MARTINI BONFINI is clearly read) and the date of its execution, unfortunately illegible. The attribution to Bonfini put forward by Daniela Ferriani and by Luciano Arcangeli (not mentioning all those who talked of mysterious Sybils dating back to the XIII century or even the IX century…) is therefore confirmed. The happy intuition of the two scholars was based on the thematic and stylistic comparison with the frescoes, also signed by the painter, in the sanctuary of the Madonna dell’Ambro near Montefortino, carried out in 1610-12 on a wave of artistic and religious fervour connected to the Holy House of Loreto. Notwithstanding the very bad state of conservation which the planned restoration should put right and despite the almost complete loss of the frescoes on the right wall and on the vault, the frescoes of Montegallo are clearly perceptible in their compositional ingeniousness and cannot be simply filed away as secondary works or a tired repetition of better works, revealing on the contrary accent and details of striking originality. Importantly, their location has never undergone substantial changes, and the paintings themselves, unlike their counterparts in Montefortino, are free of retouching or repainting. Even if the sharp and bright decoration of the vault is now indecipherable and the thematic and compositional solution of the side walls is considered taken for granted or in any case repetitive, the front wall is a small masterpiece of elegance. The entablatured aedicula encloses at its centre the XV century sculpture of Our Lady with Infant and is an integral part of a monumental trompe-l’œil, formed by two side niches and by a tympanum at the summit that links the chromia and the style of the aedicula itself. At the sides, as objects effectively enclosed in a niche, there are two genies that support candelabras. The tactile effect is given by the pedestals of the figures and by the monochromatic tint which is similar to carving. At the ends of the wall two fronted aediculas appear which enclose two painted windows that give the illusion of being open on to landscapes full of atmosphere, with very delicate tonal gradations. In the frieze of the central tympanum the gentle and solemn figure of the Eternal Father appears and at the sides, piercing the background to the decoration, golden light streams from heaven, surrounded by angels, with a sensibility of tone and shading that is a counterpoint to the white of the architecture. In the side walls, the shell-shaped niches of the lower bands with the richly dressed Prophets in monochrome recall the play of the frontal architecture. Surmounting the prophets, enthroned, there is the Sibilla Ellespontica and the Sibilla Agrippa (of great iconographic rarity) on the left and the Sibilla Frigia and the Sibilla Delfica(now much deteriorated) on the right. The left wall, which is better preserved, shows in the central spans, from top to bottom, la Natività and the l’Annunciazione. The Nativity, perfectly visible, is a work of great figurative and narrative delicacy, in which the fluid and gentle rendering of the figures is framed in a scene of great range, sharp and full of suggestions (the ruined arcades of the background, the heralding to the shepherds on the edge of a gorge at the first light of dawn).
The existence of an older pictorial decoration has been ascertained that could have conditioned the particular thematic choices of Bonfini’s frescoes. Analysis of the building structure however does not allow the placing of this ancient wall decoration in an epoch prior to the XVI century. Certainly though the high quality and the singularity of Bonfini’s frescoes testify to the strong symbolic value that the church enjoyed, not only because of its fortuitous geographical and historical position, but also because of the relationship that it established with a strong web of beliefs and traditions, very much alive in the Sibillini area at least since the XV century. And it is not difficult to identify behind the learned fusion of religious elements of the frescoes a religiosity permeated by sacred images and concepts of arcane evidence. The rough and hieratic Our Lady with Infant in the aedicula of the high altar and the terracotta polychrome of the Piety which can be dated to the end of the XV century, today kept in the Diocesan Museum of Ascoli, constitute in that sense a strong stylistic counterpoint as well as a clarifying element to the elegant XVII century cycle. These works in fact, tracing a line that includes the wooden Piety and Our Lady of the Rosary of Castro as well as the Madonna di Loreto of Piano, form the scene of a strongly vigorous religious devotion, centred on images of notable dramatic and figurative impact, as well as comparable to some aspects of importance in the history of spirituality: the Franciscan re-reading, vibrant and participatory of the drama of the Passion of Christ; the dispensary image of Maria given by the counter-reformatory culture; the pilgrimages of the Holy House. Such a key to reading, comparing the church of S. Maria in Pantano to the substance of its historic and historic spiritual reality, avoids an excessive over-evaluation of the role of the Sybils, which on closer examination take on an expressive and representative role that is decidedly subordinate compared to the Marian image and turn out to be perfectly in context in the vast background of renaissance and post-renaissance iconographic culture. The choice made by the commissioners of the work in terms of figurative models could simply start from the need of distinction and of emulation, given the precedent in the dell’Ambro sanctuary. The possibility that there could be a process of re-qualifying very ancient cultural presences in progress, brought back into the bosom of the Church through the image of Mary, is all to be proved. The statue of the Piety In the past there was a statue of the Piety in the church that was much venerated. It was 84 cm high, in polychrome terracotta, the work of an unknown artist and dating back to the XV century. This Piety belongs to a type that is very widespread in the Marche, Umbria, and Abruzzo and in northern Italy. It developed in the German region of Bohemia, in the XIII century. The body of Christ is slender and rigid and appears to be very small in comparison to the figure of Mary. A certain elegance of spiritual suffering is noted in the face, hair, beard, in the sadly gentle expression. The Virgin expresses a more human form of pain with her frowning face and her copious tears that, fall from her eyes in numerous trickles to streak her cheeks. The folds of the drapery, numerous, curved and parallel, accentuate with their dynamism the dramatic nature of the scene. Today the statue is kept in the Diocesan Museum of Ascoli Piceno. Bibliography:
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