On the top of a gentle hillock in Valpolicella, stands the parish church of San Giorgio. Austere, with its exposed stones and without decoration, the building seems to have been there since time immemorial. Walking up the paths along the hillside, guided by the sight of its massive bell tower, we can almost breathe in its ancient charm. Were the church and its cloister here before everything else? The village developed around it, similar to the respect we owe to wise men and elders. The parish church of San Giorgio di Valpolicella preserves the historical memory of the place. It guards secrets and knowledge of other times, cradles mysteries yet to be revealed.
The enigmatic Longobard inscription
The earliest documentary sources for the parish church of San Giorgio di Valpolicella date back to the 10th century. However, some clues reveal that the building already existed in Longobard times. On the columns of the ciborium, rebuilt in 19231, there is an engraved inscription that undoubtedly datable to the years of King Liutprand. The epigraph actually originates from a fragment today preserved in the Castelvecchio Civic Museum in Verona2. This is the complete text:
IN N(omine) D(omi)NI IH(es)V XPI DE DONIS S(an)C(t)I IVHANNES BAPTESTE EDI FICATUS EST HANC CIVORIVS SUB TEMPORE – [DO]MNO NOSTRO LIOPRANDO REGE ET V(iro) B(eatissimo) PATER NO(str)O DOMNICO EPESCOPO ET COSTODES EIUS V(iri) V(enerabiles) VIDALIANO ET TANCOL PR(es)B(yte)RIS ET REFOL GASTALDIO GONDELME INDIGNVS DIACONNVS SCRIP SI
+ URSVS MAG(ister) CVM DISCEPOLIS SVIS IVVINTINO ET IVVIANO EDI FICAVET HANC CIVORIVM VERGONDVS TEODAL FO SCARI
The two-part inscription reveals some very interesting historical elements. Since “in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the gifts of Saint John the Baptist this ciborium was built“, it is possible to assume that the church was originally dedicated to Saint John, or that another building of worship with this dedication existed nearby, perhaps a baptistery3.
The inscription relates that the artefact was the work of magister Orso and his stonemasons Gioventino and Gioviano. Moreover, it indicates its placement at the time of Bishop Dominic and especially Liutprand, the Longobard ruler who governed Italy between 712 and 744. As the inscriptions refers, the presbyters Vidaliano and Tancol are custodes of the ciborium, i.e. the donations made by the faithful to Saint John, while Refol was the king’s financial gastald. In this sense, the epigraph constituted a veritable legal act carved in stone, whose witness, at the foot of the first part of the epigraph, was a certain Gondelmo.
““In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the gifts of Saint John the Baptist this ciborium was edified, being King Liutprand and Bishop Dominic, and custodians the presbyters Vidalian and Tancol, and gastald Refol. This I, unworthy deacon, Gondelmo, wrote.
+ Orso master builder with his disciples Joventinus and Jovian built this ciborium. Vergundus and Theodalphus scari.
The Romanesque parish church of San Giorgio di Valpolicella
Apart from the inscription on the ciborium, we have no other written evidence of the parish church of San Giorgio in Lombard times. The worship building that we see today is Romanesque, a sign of a complete reconstruction in later centuries. Nor do we know when it was elevated to the rank of a parish4, with its own clergy having administrative functions that could collect tithes, baptize and ordain new clerics5. It is only possible to gather clues in some dusty documentary sources.
A 931 will reveals that the property of the visdomino of Verona, Dagiberto, was donated to the “scola sacerdotum plebis Sancti Georrii”6. This is a valuable piece of information indicating that a community of canons resided in San Giorgio di Valpolicella. Also in 1078 the church was mentioned in a document attesting to the cession of some plots of land by a certain priest Liuzo to the “fratres della scola de plebe Sancti Georgii”7. In 1187, however, it was the archpriest of the parish, Martino, who attested to the existence of a domus episcopi in the castrum of San Giorgio. Here, in the presence of twelve fratres and Bishop Adelardo, he signed the cession of his property.
We can imagine that the construction of San Giorgio complex, as we see it today, dates back to this period . It was provided with a church, a cloister and a rectory with a chapter house, to fully meet the needs that community life required. In addition, a massive bell tower characterizes its structure. A square plan, on four orders, with a belfry equipped with bifora and triforium windows compose its structure.
The church
The church has a nave and two aisles and a double east-west apse, with a wooden truss roof. The thick masonry, made of local limestone, opens to the outside only through narrow splayed monoforas. Its builders certainly overlooked the Longobard structures, of which perhaps only the semicircular apse to the west survives. Of Romanesque construction is the eastern apse, the only tripartite one. This sort of juxtaposition between the two poles of the church is also evident in the interior spaces. The round arches separating the naves are on quadrangular pillars in the western area, reserved for the faithful, and on small columns in the eastern one, raised for liturgical use by the canons.
At the level of the east apse stands the presbytery, where is located the ciborium above the main altar. The hypothesis that the Longobard structure perhaps covered a baptismal font named after Saint John, as deducible from the inscription on the supporting columns, is not strange. However, even its arches were possibly part of an iconostasis that separated the plebeian portion of the church from that reserved for the clergy. Indeed, there are geometric decorations typical of the plutei of the Longobard age and bas-reliefs with Christological symbols. These include crosses, wheels, suns, fish, doves, peacocks, and vine shoots.
A small portal on the south side, traversing the cloister, was originally the only accessible point of the church. To later centuries belong the other entrances carved out on the same side of the building. The large neo-Gothic portal in the western apse dates to the first half of the 19th century.
The frescoes in San Giorgio di Valpolicella
The frescoes of the parish church of San Giorgio date back to the first centuries after its construction. The oldest painting on the bowl of the western apse, according to some authors, dates as far back as the 11th century8: it is the Christ Pantocrator inscribed in a mandorla, of Byzantine stylistic derivation. Figures now indistinguishable surround the Almighty. Nonetheless, drawing from iconographic tradition, we can imagine that these are the symbols of the Tetramorph. They are the lion of the evangelist Mark, the angel of Matthew, the eagle of John, and the ox of Luke.
To the 14th century belong the frescoes of saints on the pillars between the naves. We see Saint Catherine of Alexandria, a bishop, a Virgin and Child with Saint Anthony Abbot, a Virgin of Mercy, Saint Bartholomew, and Mary Magdalene. Along the right aisle are: a Madonna enthroned with Child and Saints near the apse (12th century); a painting, highly compromised, that may correspond to an Expulsion from earthly paradise of Adam and Eve (13th century).
Along the same nave is a 14th century fresco of the Last Supper. It appears mutilated due to the opening of a side entrance, but we glimpse its original depiction. The scenic moment is when Christ states “Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me”. In the center of the depiction is Messiah, with a serious and impassive face. The apostles argue among themselves about who the betrayer might be. Judas, placed on the other side of the table as per iconographic tradition, is now almost obliterated; his existence can be deduced from a flap of his robe9.
The altar of the Sun and Moon
One of the columns supporting the arches on the southern flank is shorter than the others. In fact, it rests on a stone base, roughly cubic in shape, on which it reads:
SOLI ET LVNAI / Q(uintus) SERTORIVS Q(uinti) F(ilius) / FESTUS FLAMEN
C.I.L. V, 3917
It is easy to recognize there a Roman altar dedicated to the Sun and Moon (Sol and Luna) deities. This is an expression of an even older cult existing in the area. In fact, on the hill relief of San Giorgio resided the Arusnates. They were a 5th century Italic population, devoted to agriculture.
In the pagus Arusnatium archaeologists have found more than two hundred votive terracotta statuettes and various epigraphs. Some of them were reused in the capitals of the parish church in the Romanesque period. Well, the Arusnati inscriptions list the deities worshipped by that people. They are names as yet unknown: Cuslanus, Sqnnagalle, Ihamnagalle, vaguely reminiscent of the pantheon of the Etruscans10, and above all they are Latinized, a sign of the advent of the Romans and a process of acculturation already in act11. On a reused epigraph found in the apsidal area of the church12, we could perhaps recognize the invocation to the Lua, Saturn’s paredra13 and therefore possible mistress of agriculture. Imagination leads us to assert that Arusnates, on this sacred hillock of Valpolicella, officiated propitiatory rites for the soil fertility. However, this is only a suggestion.
The cloister and chapter house of San Giorgio di Valpolicella
Elegant arcades with slender columns, sometimes paired, mark the cloister on three arms. The carefully carved inverted pyramid-trunk capitals, more rarely cubic, had an essential, geometric style. Decorations include phytoform motifs, animal beasts, masks, and the flower of life.
On the eastern side of the cloister, traces of the ancient wall paintings have survived. With difficulty we can still make out the silhouette of a man kneeling before a lily, a symbol of purity. A little further on, a roaring fair is a metaphor for evil and sin. From the cloister we access the rectory and the chapter house, whose frescoed walls depict stars, knots and Gospel phrases.
Finally, we can observe a fine engraving of the Merels Board on the small wall supporting the columns. Two others are on the cover slab of a sarcophagus, placed at the intersection of the northeast covered arms. Were these merely tabulae lusoriae, tables for the game of Filetto, or were they there for other reasons?
In the Middle Ages, geometric patterns were associated with the sacred. Drawn in a ritual manner, they had definite proportions and mimicked the harmony of creation. In the three concentric squares it is possible to glimpse the principle of analogy between the microcosm and macrocosm, as well as the presence of the four elements that constitute creation. This is the same symbolism on which the Medieval magistri relied for the construction of the parish church and abbey cloisters, a place at once of water and earth, air and fire. It is possible, then, that the Merels Board had a particular symbolic message unknown to us but well known to members of the San Giorgio community.
Samuele Corrente Naso
Notes
- G. Silvestri, La Valpolicella, Centro di documentazione per la storia della Valpolicella, 1983. ↩︎
- E. Napione, Ciborio di San Giorgio di Valpolicella. L’iscrizione di VIII secolo, in Sotto il profilo del metodo. Studi in onore di Silvia Lusuardi Siena, SAP Società Archeologica s.r.l., Mantova, 2021. ↩︎
- A. Brugnoli, F. Cortellazzo, L’iscrizione del ciborio di San Giorgio di Valpolicella, in Annuario Storico della Valpolicella, 2012. ↩︎
- The first mention of a “plebem Sancti Georgii cum cappellis” is in the pontifica of Eugenius III Piae postulatio voluntatis issued on May 17, 1145. ↩︎
- Ibidem note 2. ↩︎
- A. Brugnoli, Il “castrum” e il territorio di San Giorgio nel medioevo: vicende istituzionali e tracce materiali, in Annuario Storico della Valpolicella, 1999-2000. ↩︎
- A. Castagnetti, La Valpolicella dall’alto medioevo all’età comunale, Verona, 1984. ↩︎
- W. Arslan, L’architettura romanica veronese, 1939. ↩︎
- F. Piccoli, Un’Ultima cena nella Pieve di San Giorgio e un pittore in Valpolicella all’alba del XV secolo, in Annuario Storico della Valpolicella, 2014. ↩︎
- S. Mazzarino, Il basso impero. Antico, tardoantico ed era costantiniana, Volume 2, Bari, Edizioni Dedalo, 1980. ↩︎
- M. Bolla, La chiesa di San Giorgio di Valpolicella, Verona, Pro loco San Giorgio di Valpolicella, 1999. ↩︎
- Alfredo Buonopane, Dis Pater e Lua dea in un’iscrizione di Verona, in Ruri mea vixi colendo. Studi in onore di Franco Porrà, a cura di A.M. Corda e P. Floris, Cagliari, Sandhi Edizioni, 2012. ↩︎
- Aulus Gellius, XIII, 23, 2. ↩︎
