Abbey of Santa Maria di Rambona

The abbey of Santa Maria di Rambona stands in an isolated position, not far from the small town of Pollenza, near the confluence of the small stream called Acqua Salata with the river Potenza. The remaining structures show restoration and remodelling carried out in various periods. The surviving Romanesque parts are concentrated in the apse area and the crypt. The origins of this monastery are lost in the mists of the early medieval centuries. Scholars place the foundation of the abbey towards the end of the 9th century (this information comes from a diploma of Berengar of Friuli and, above all, from an ivory diptych, now in the Vatican Museums, from which we learn that Abbot Olderico had it carved in honour of Sts. Gregory, Flavian and Sylvester, patrons of the abbey of Rambona, built by Ageltrude, daughter of Adelchis, Prince of Benevento, and wife of Guy of Spoleto, King of Italy, crowned emperor in the year 891). The monastery was built on a site already consecrated in antiquity to the worship of pagan deities associated with the cult of water. Recently, in the western part of the crypt, a passage has been uncovered that gave access to an underground area hollowed out of the rock, with a small basin for collecting the sacred waters. Scholars have identified this space as an ancient temple dedicated to the goddess Bona. The radical reorganisation of the monastery dates from the 15th century; of the old Romanesque monument it preserved only the apse area and the crypt. The east end, with three sandstone apses almost entirely devoid of decoration, retains traces of the white stone pilaster strips that divided the apse hemicycles, and a series of splayed single-light windows in the upper part of the central apse only, topped by arches made from a single block of white stone in the case of the five upper ones, while the five lower windows, which light the crypt, are of simpler workmanship. The western part of the building was adapted for residential use at the end of the 19th century, leaving intact, as a place of worship, only the presbytery area, now used as a small museum (pluteus photo), and the crypt, which is reached by a small outside staircase on the south side. EXTERIOR (exterior photos 1 and 2) The Romanesque exterior visible today consists of the east end, with three oriented apses: the stone used for the building is well squared, brown in colour, laid with fair regularity, with intervals of thin rows of red bricks, revealing a tentative attempt at colour composition; two pilaster strips on each side apse and four on the central one articulate the surfaces; 6 windows (three above and three at crypt level) open in the central apse, while in the side apses there are two windows (one at the centre of the apse semicircles above and one below, at crypt level); all are of similar workmanship and splayed. The upper part of the apses shows clear signs of restoration. CRYPT In plan, the architectural layout follows the forms of the church above, with three apses to the east and a hall divided by 14 columns supporting groin vaults in three bays longitudinally and five bays transversely. The masonry used in building the crypt consists of well-squared stone cut into fairly large blocks, bedded in mortar joints about 1 centimetre thick, with the insertion of decorative terracotta bands, which also recur on the exterior. The capitals at the top of the columns, which are made of various materials reused from the classical period, are archaic in workmanship (perhaps Ottonian), but their type, according to scholars, “finds precise parallels in the 11th century”. They are decorated with different motifs: the carving is deep but crude, in some cases with traces of colour. To the earliest phase (9th century), on the other hand, belong some sculptural elements, perhaps originally part of a balustrade or chancel enclosure. Capital 1: decorated with acanthus leaves; remains of blue and red paint can still be seen both on the capital and on the impost block, which is decorated with an interlaced floral motif. Capital 2: the decoration is similar in workmanship to that of capital 1, from which it differs in having an additional row of acanthus leaves, while the impost block is decorated with geometric motifs. Remains of red paint. At the corners, towards the apse semicircle, two passant eagles are carved [according to the local guide, however, they are doves]. Capitals 3 and 6: decorated with two rows of honeycombed palmettes and, above, with a schematic geometric-floral spiral motif; capital 6, however, is distinguished by a stronger use of colour, but it lacks an impost block. Capitals 4 and 5: these are cubic capitals with chamfered lower corners: the decoration of the faces consists of a motif of three suns, of which the lowest is inscribed in a circle; palmettes are carved on the chamfers; the impost block is decorated with a stepped motif widening from bottom to top; the columns supporting the two capitals are identical, in grey marble. Capital 7 (photo cap 7): the column with a fluted shaft with cut edges that supports this capital is clearly reused and of Roman origin; the basket capital is very large and is carved on the north side with a wolf and on the south side with two birds (according to the local guide, a pelican feeding its young by tearing the flesh from its breast); the other two sides, on the other hand, are decorated with palmette motifs. Capital 8: the carving on this cubic capital with simply chamfered corners is shallow and imprecise: only three of the sides are decorated, one barely legible and two with plant motifs and the usual “solar circles”. Capital 9 (photo cap 9): of excellent workmanship, a basket capital following Early Christian models of the Ravenna type, with palmettes inscribed in transverse curved lozenges, it also shows clear traces of purple colouring. Capital 10 (photo cap 10a): this capital has floral decoration on two sides, a lion – photo cap 10b – (or panther) carved on a third, and on the last an eagle with the word “AQLA” incised in the middle of the figure (the drawing of the eagle is very “primitive”, almost childlike). Capital 13 (photo cap 13): another basket capital, with decorative motifs comparable to 7th-century Ravenna art, similar in its decoration to capital 9 though smaller, without an impost block and without colour. Capital 14: a half-capital set into the apse wall towards the north, carved with a palmette (according to the tourist guide available on site, it symbolises the souls of the dead, while the acanthus leaves are meant to represent the souls of the living). Capital 15: also a half-capital, decorated with a Byzantine-type knot motif.