Monastery of San Salvatore - Remains

The monastery of S. Salvatore at Sirmione owed its origins to a grave act of bloodshed involving the Lombard king Desiderius and his wife Ansa, and a powerful Lombard nobleman, one Cunimondo, who, to make amends to the sovereigns for the killing of Manipert, one of the queen's favourites, gave all his property to the monastery of S. Giulia in Brescia and to the three churches then existing in Sirmione: S. Pietro in Mavino, S. Martino and S. Vito. In 762–765 Queen Ansa had a “monasteriolo” (small monastery) built at Sirmione, directly dependent on S. Giulia. Unfortunately, all that remains of the building is the back wall of the apse area of the small church of S. Salvatore, which can be glimpsed from the public gardens, right between the nursery school and the primary school. In 774 the Sirmione monastery was ceded to Charlemagne, and in particular to the imperial monastery of St. Martin of Tours. The monastic community of Sirmione soon became a dependency of the monastery of S. Giulia in Brescia again, however. As mentioned, of Queen Ansa's ancient monastic foundation only the remains of the east end survive today (see photo: apse area), with the three semicircular apses of different sizes (the central apse is larger than the lateral ones) and a short stretch of the side walls at foundation level. The section occupied by the central apse is the one with the most substantial portions of masonry, decreasing proportionally in the north apse down to the minimum in the small south apse. Excavations and recovery work are still in progress, partly because a large modern building is being constructed in the area south of the ruins. The archaeological area is now closed and cannot be visited; the little information reported here is the result of observations made through the fences surrounding the site of S. Salvatore. In the outer hemicycle of the main apse, a sort of squared niche has been made in the thickness of the upper walls. It is not possible to judge whether it was made in recent times or belongs instead to the oldest structures, since S. Salvatore was frequented and remained in continuous use for worship over a long period (the church was in fact still visible in the mid-19th century). The scantiness of the remains does not allow a reliable architectural analysis from a distance; what remains to support the antiquity of the origins of this monument is what can be read of the rectangular plan with three slightly projecting semicircular apses. Looking at the archaeological area from the west, one sees a stretch of the foundations of the side walls of the building, which also makes it possible to note the shallow depth of the hemicycles on the inside. As far as can be seen, the materials used are little-worked stones of different sizes and origins; lake pebbles predominate, alternating with other roughly finished stones and set in thick layers of mortar. The masonry of the small south apse (see photo: masonry) consists mostly of lake pebbles set in thick mortar together with other stones of different materials, little worked and arranged in roughly horizontal courses, reaching a height of just over a metre. The lower parts of the masonry of the central apse do not differ from those of the south apse, at least up to a height equal to that preserved in this small apse, except for the presence of a small squared window; above, the masonry changes and the variety of materials, like the laying, becomes more confused, with the insertion of a slightly projecting rectangular frame enclosing a niche created in the thickness of the wall. The small north apse, on the other hand, retains a stretch of plaster covering the masonry. On this stretch of plaster traces of fresco, now illegible, survive. The upper stretch of masonry shows the same constructional disorder that characterises the upper parts of the central apse.