Church of Sant'Emiliano

Along the south longitudinal wall there are two other openings, a single-light window with a corbelled splay, now blocked, with a monolithic arch (see photo of interior window), and a squared door opening onto the farm area, both of which would appear to date from the Romanesque period. The interior space is divided into three bays by two large round arches supported by squared piers set against the side walls, built during the 16th-century restoration. That the arches were built after the Romanesque period is shown by the fact that the second pier on the left, as seen from the entrance, covered some stretches of fresco, recently uncovered, which scholars date to the 14th and 15th centuries. The roof consists of exposed wooden beams. The apse hemicycle and the part of the wall immediately above it are entirely rendered in cement. According to scholars, the original semicircular Romanesque apse was raised in its entirety (by about a metre) at the same time as the transverse arches supporting the roof were built (16th century), and only during the mid-20th-century restoration was it returned to its original form, by dismantling the added masonry and recomposing it as the trends of the time suggested: evidence of this would be the cement rendering of the interior, some of the small arches and their corbels, and some of the stones forming the projecting cornice beneath the apse roof, which show exposed surfaces smoothed with modern tools (a milling cutter), as well as the stump of pilaster strip that remains embedded in the outer apse hemicycle. Doubts and uncertainties nonetheless remain as to the extent of this restructuring, since, apart from the hypothetical continuation of this pilaster strip both downwards and upwards, the rest of the outer masonry of the apse shows no obvious breaks or structural inconsistencies, although the skilful reconstruction carried out by the restorers, so precise that only expert eyes can detect it, neglected to restore the second, opposite pilaster strip. The interior walls have the same building characteristics as the exterior, although here the maintenance work, with cement mortar inserted between the blocks, is more evident. The partly preserved frescoes suggest that the whole interior was decorated with paintings. On the south wall the remains are now illegible. A child's face and part of its mother's can just be made out, overlapping another frescoed section of which only a fragment of frame remains, which must have enclosed another scene. The remains on the north wall are better preserved, even though they are interrupted by one of the 16th-century piers supporting the transverse arches: here, towards the main entrance, a scene of the Annunciation can be identified: the figures of the Virgin in the centre and of the maidservant on the left are only conjectural, whereas on the right the Archangel Gabriel, with his left hand raised, is clearly identified by name: the three figures are set within a frame in three colours, ochre, red and green, with inscriptions in Gothic lettering and surmounted by a plant motif in purple-red (datable to the 15th century, see photo fresco 1). Next, after the pier, towards the apse area, three more figures appear, more legible (see photo fresco 2): from left to right, scholars would identify a St. Emilian, owing to the type of turban-like headdress (St. Emilian was indeed a figure who lived in the regions of the Black Sea in the 4th century), framed within a geometric motif; to the right follows the figure of a saint who cannot be further identified, holding a knife, flanked by the figure of an archangel (St. Michael?). The execution of these three figures is rather crude and would seem to be the work of a different artist from that of the angelic figure in the first frescoed section. The frame against which the three figures stand out is markedly different from that of the first fresco. Here too, however, there are significant losses of paint (because of the rougher treatment of the figures, some scholars lean towards an earlier date than that of the preceding frescoed section, 14th century?) Against the south longitudinal wall of the church now stand the farm buildings which must originally have housed the officiating clergy: evidence of their early origin is provided by some stretches of the foundations (visible on the east side of the complex), which for a few metres show the same building characteristics as the lower masonry of the church, as if they were a continuation of it or formed the base of a bell tower contemporary with the Romanesque church. The masonry of the elevation, on the other hand, shows inconsistent building characteristics, made by assembling pebbles and rough-hewn stones of different kinds and sizes in thick layers of mortar and laid in rather irregular courses, a clear sign, according to scholars, of the reconstruction carried out in the 15th century to reorganise and restore this part of the pieve complex. Inside, in this part of the structure, a room survives covered by a barrel vault, with two openings, also made during the 15th-century rebuilding: a squared window framed in terracotta and, at first-floor level, a window with a segmental arch that was later blocked. Two further openings were inserted in a still later building phase. Again according to recent studies, the dovecote tower was built next to the barrel-vaulted room shortly after the rebuilding of the small house used as the residence of the presbiter (scholars date this structure to around the mid-15th century, see dovecote photo). Here too the masonry shows the same characteristics as found in the room of the priest's house, consisting of pebbles and roughly worked stones with inclusions of terracotta and curved tiles, laid with abundant mortar and arranged in irregular horizontal courses. “The present appearance of the tower is not very different from the original; the openings and architectural elements are largely those of the 15th century. There were four interior rooms” [1]. A notable feature is a stretch of projecting cornice on the south side, marking off the second floor of the tower from the raised section used as a pigeon loft, which still preserves parts of the original painted decoration in small red bands (see dovecote detail photo). Next to the tower and along the east–west axis, between the 16th and 17th centuries “a two-storey building was constructed, leaning against it, serving as a portico and probably a hayloft, which over time underwent several transformations until it took on its present appearance” [2], which is moreover rather inconsistent and in an evident state of decay. The settlement history of the pieve complex of Sant'Emiliano must not, however, be considered apart from the presence, on the level ground below the apse area of the church, of a large and important area occupied by a Roman villa rustica (unfortunately, for the time being, only located and still awaiting archaeological investigation). As proof of this, in the lower north-west corner of the church façade, a large fragment of white marble is built into the wall, almost certainly coming from the ancient buildings of the Roman settlement (see base photo). [1] L. Cervigni: S.Emiliano (Padenghe sul Garda - BS): analisi di una pieve e del suo complesso rurale. [2] L. Cervigni, op. cit.