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Cavenago di Brianza (Monza e Brianza, Italy): Church of Santa Maria in Campo
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 The church of Santa Maria in Campo, originally dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta, has a Romanesque style.
The first version of the church is believed to have been built as an ex voto as a small Oratory in the 12th century.
The first reliable historical evidence of its presence in Cavenago di Brianza dates back to the thirteenth century, when a community of humiliated friars settled in it and rebuilt it in the current version in Sforza Lombard style in the first half of the fifteenth century. Around it were alsoseveral houses and work rooms built, demolished between 1970 and 1980 and of which today the only traces are the buttresses present in the rear.
Starting from 2013 conservative restoration interventions were carried out, financed with state funds, by the Italian Episcopal Conference "8x mille" and by the Parish of Cavenago di Brianza, which affected the main facades, the bell tower and the roofs, bringing the church closer to its original beauty.
The church is characterized by a brickwork and alluvial pebble vestments. There are decorative elements in terracotta and there is a single central portal surmounted by a rose window in the top part. On the facade there are barely visible remains of fifteenth-century painted plaster around the portal.
In correspondence with the junction with the roof, the walls show the typical hanging arches decoration.
The bell tower is also in bricks and is decorated with pilasters and half-height hanging arches. In the upper half walled up Gothic windows are recognizable.
Inside there are frescoes of fine workmanship and from different ages, while other important frescoes, probably ex voto, including a Leonardesque-inspired Madonna, were detached from the walls and transported on canvas in the 60s (in their place there are today photographic copies). After careful restoration, they were placed in the Parish Church of Cavenago, where they can still be visited and represent an exceptional cultural heritage of the Cavenaghese Community.
The back wall is largely occupied by a cycle of frescoes (probably from the sixteenth century) dedicated to the life of Jesus Christ and divided into panels. In the largest panel, just above the apse, a large and crowded crucifixion is depicted in which two angels collect in cups the blood that flows copiously from the wounds of Christ on the cross.
This cycle of frescoes is curiously characterized by the almost total absence of blue (unless it is an alteration of colors over time).
On the sides of the apse there are two fake side apses. The one on the right is flat, with the wall occupied by a Madonna with a child of coarse workmanship, the one on the left includes a grate to illuminate a passage to service compartments behind it and in the lunette a fresco (it would seem of the late fifteenth century) depicting perhaps an adoration of the Magi.
The Santa Maria in Campo Restoration Committee, born in 2014 and formed by a group of devoted and full of goodwill citizens, carries out an absolutely important work to bring this ancient church back to the heart of the Community and to raise funds to continue the restoration .
Categories: Places Others
Via Santa Maria in Campo, 20873 Cavenago di Brianza MB |
Further pictures of Church of Santa Maria in Campo in the section Photography |