Church of San Pietro in Mavino

The church of S. Pietro in Mavino, which arose more or less at the same time as the former monastery of S. Salvatore was built, was founded, according to tradition, by local fishermen in the Lombard period. Unlike what happened to S. Salvatore, part of the ancient building has remained standing, albeit with additions and alterations made in various periods, including the Romanesque (11th–12th century). The building stands on the highest point of the Sirmione peninsula, outside the town, not far from the ruins of the so-called “Grotte di Catullo” (a renowned archaeological area with the remains of a large Roman residential building, reused and transformed in the Lombard period into a fortified site and abandoned for good shortly afterwards). The earliest documents mentioning the church of S. Pietro in Mavino date from the 8th century (a first mention is contained in a manuscript of the year 756, while far more important is the document of 774 recording the donation of all the Lombard possessions in Sirmione to the Carolingian monastery of St. Martin of Tours, among them the church of S. Pietro in Mavino). Today the building has a rectangular, single-nave plan with three semicircular apses to the east, and recalls buildings of Carolingian derivation of the 8th–9th century, although it must be said that stylistic affinities alone are certainly not enough to establish a reliable chronology. Three quarters of the present building of S. Pietro can be seen from outside; only the north side, enlarged with the addition of recent living quarters, cannot be visited, as it lies within private property. Of the three semicircular apses of the eastern end, the central one is larger than the lateral ones, whose hemicycles project only slightly from the plan. A thick layer of plaster covers almost all of the masonry of the east end, with flaking in the lower parts that allows glimpses of the stones laid in the wall, which is made of soft pinkish, ochre or grey stones mixed with pebbles and with red and ochre bricks, all set in abundant mortar. The apses have no external decoration (see photo: apse) and are enlivened only by narrow single-light windows with plain double splays (now walled up), three in the central apse and one in each of the lateral ones: only at the top of the main apse, less markedly in the north apse and negligibly in the south one, does the alignment of the masonry become irregular and protruding (the plastering makes it impossible to judge whether this projection of the wall is due to excess plaster – since the parts below the roofs of the smaller apses show this feature only partially – or to the presence under the plaster of decorative elements causing the overhang). The apses are roofed with Roman-type flat tiles and curved tiles. Just above the level of this roof a sort of slightly projecting brick profile can be seen, outlining the shape of the roof slopes; it is perhaps a sign of the level of the old roof, and runs below the raising, of about one and a half metres, carried out in the 14th century. The eaves of this part of the building are marked by a double stepped cornice of red bricks. The austere, essential appearance of this section of the church, with the central apse much larger than the two lateral ones, would suggest pre-Romanesque origins, although it is undeniable that these archaic structural features must be considered mere clues for dating the construction of S. Pietro, above all because this architectural model persisted in the territory of Brescia into the 11th and even the 12th century. However, according to some scholars, in this case the concurrence of the type of plan, of the masonry of pebbles, bricks and stones in thick mortar, and the absence of decoration reasonably favour a date before the year 1000. This view would also gain credibility from an analysis of the masonry of the nearby bell tower, whose lower parts, built shortly after the middle of the 11th century (its construction is said to date from 1070), are clearly different from those of the church, both in the bonding of the masonry, with regularly laid stones framed by broad corner pilasters, and in the presence of a series of small terracotta arches and of two-light windows. In general, however, the masonry is extremely stratified, with wide use of the most varied building materials: from unworked lake pebbles to roughly squared stones or others more smoothly finished, as well as bricks and tiles of various sizes and of different periods (Roman, early medieval and late Gothic). On the basis also of recent research on the complex masonry of S. Pietro, scholars would read in some of these “fairly significant traces of the first building phase, dating from the 8th century, particularly in the two side walls and in the façade”. The view from the south side of the church (see photo: south side) shows a small constructional anomaly: the ridge line of the roof slope is in fact slightly inclined towards the façade. The south longitudinal wall partly retains a layer of plaster, although in the lower parts some stretches remain uncovered, allowing at least a partial reading of the composition of the masonry. For almost the entire length of the building and for a considerable part of its elevation, the masonry is made of small white and pink stones of soft material, of different sizes and of little thickness, set in thick mortar (layers 2–3 centimetres thick), laid with an attempt at order, in horizontal courses alternating with bands of stones set in herringbone pattern. The plastering already mentioned makes it impossible to establish whether the different arrangement of the stones in horizontal levels was intended to be uniform and decorative. This building phase reaches a height of about three metres, including the traces of four rather large round-arched single-light windows (the outline of one of these windows, with a lowered arch in small bricks, also walled up, can still be made out), while a fifth large rectangular window, opened more recently near the bell tower, cuts into this building phase. The opening of windows of this kind in the side walls recalls archaic architectural arrangements characteristic of Early Christian and early medieval basilicas, such as the double-framed windows opened in the side walls of S. Salvatore in Brescia. In the upper parts the rebuilding due to the 14th-century restoration is evident, with the raising of the roofs, an intervention which probably led to the blocking of the windows and to the painting of the fresco cycle inside. In the masonry near the corner of the façade, for the whole height, the type of material changes compared with the rest of the building: here larger stones are used and the laying becomes rougher; the mortars used are different, although the plaster softens the differences. Still on the south side, the stretch of wall between the apse area and the bell tower has a thick layer of plaster that makes it impossible to compare it with the rest of the masonry to the west. Certainly both the door and the rectangular window in this sector of the building date from recent times. According to scholars, the church underwent a considerable renovation as early as the 14th century (this intervention is attested by an inscription in Roman numerals, MCCCXX, on a brick set in the wall to the left of the entrance portal) (see photo: restoration date). To this phase belong the alterations to the façade, with the construction of a new portal with a lowered arch, still in place. During the same restoration, two fragments of white marble from the early medieval period were set into the façade just above the portal: one decorated with a lattice motif, the other, placed crosswise, carved with a vase from which springs a vine shoot ending in a flower, with a dove drinking. In the 15th century the rose window in the centre of the façade and the square window to the left of the portal were made. Further interventions in the 17th and 18th centuries affected the building of S. Pietro and led to the opening of the two pointed windows of the façade and of the door in the south side wall. In the present gabled façade (see photo: façade), therefore, all the openings – from the oculus to the two windows with lowered arches, from the squared window to the left of the portal to the portal itself – are entirely the result of recent reconstructions, which have considerably altered the original appearance. The two pre-Romanesque fragments set above the entrance themselves underline how profound were the changes that affected the structures characterising the ancient building of S. Pietro. A layer of plaster (at this point certainly necessary, given the considerable manipulation of the masonry) gives the façade an architecturally uniform appearance. Only in the lower parts does the loss of plaster allow a partial reading of the composition of the masonry: here too stones of varied quality and shape are assembled in abundant mortar. To define the edges of the façade, rather large stones, smoothed on their visible faces, have been inserted; in their working and laying they differ considerably from the rest of the materials used in the masonry. The quadrangular bell tower, on the south side of the church, is unanimously recognised as a fully Romanesque construction, probably built in two phases dating from the 11th (1070) and 12th centuries, plus at least a third phase in the 14th century, which saw the blocking of the uppermost two-light windows and the creation, one storey higher, of the new bell chamber topped by a pyramidal pinnacle. The tower's masonry is made of the most varied materials, although there is no lack of an attempt at a uniform arrangement of the stones, both in horizontal courses and by type of material (this is best seen in the elevation of the east side, from a height of about three metres up to the line of the small hanging arches) (see photo: bell tower, east). On the east side, the lower parts of the tower are made of roughly assembled stones, probably also as a result of restorations; indeed, the remains of the brick arch of a door, now walled up, are still visible. The other sides also show a variety of materials: pebbles, squared stones, chips and bricks; on the west side, in the lower parts near the side wall of the building, there are even round stones set into the wall which would appear to be sections of Roman columns (one of these pieces is hollow in the centre). From a height of about three metres upwards, on the other hand, the work becomes more careful and the roughly worked stones manage to follow regular horizontal lines, even for more than one course: here, on all sides, rounded lake pebbles are laid in horizontal courses and in thick mortar, alternating with bands of red and ochre bricks, with stretches of masonry made entirely of light-coloured squared stones. Two broad corner pilasters of fairly large stones, smoothed on their visible faces, frame these stretches of wall on three sides (the north side, of which only the top can be seen, lacks them), with the central section finished by a cornice of composite rising terracotta arches, supported by undecorated small corbels, also in terracotta (in the Veronese manner). On the east side the cornice of small arches is damaged in one stretch, while it is well preserved on the south and west sides (the north side of the bell tower has no decorative features: the single-light window has been blocked and the masonry shows no distinctive details, apart from a rough laying of irregular stones of different materials). All in all, the bell tower is not very tall; the present bell chamber is built entirely of brick and has single-light windows on each side (except, as mentioned, the north one, which is walled up). A cornice with a course of red bricks set in a saw-tooth pattern runs along the top of the tower. The constructional differences between the lowest sections and the middle section of the tower, up to the height of the blind arches, would be attributable to the two different building phases of the 11th and 12th centuries. The medieval stretch of the north side wall, visible near the apse area, shows a narrowing that can be detected in the plan and perceived in the elevation too: from the corner of the apse, after a few metres, the wall seems to undergo a swelling or widening as far as the façade. The elevation of this part of the building is almost entirely covered with ivy and the type of masonry cannot be observed, while the rest of the side wall is occupied by the modern residential buildings. INTERIOR The single nave of the interior appears bright and spacious (see photo: interior). No evident detail goes back to the Romanesque period. The interior walls are decorated with several layers of paintings dated between the 12th and the 16th century. Large stretches of the lower side walls, as well as all three apses, bear substantial traces of frescoes, in varying states of preservation. The ancient origin of this building can be sensed in the shallow depth of the smaller apses, which here look almost like two niches. Along the whole south side, a plinth projecting about twenty centimetres runs to a height of one metre above the floor. The plastering makes it impossible to see whether it belongs to a building phase distinct from the rest of the elevation. A concise description of the series of frescoes in the church of S. Pietro in Mavino follows. No critical assessments, interpretative proposals or chronological hypotheses will be put forward; only an “artistic-descriptive” summary of the scenes depicted will be given, referring the reader to more competent research and more precise historiographical studies. continued >>>