Parish Church of San Giorgio di Valpolicella

The village of San Giorgio di Valpolicella (or “Ingannapoltron”, as the locals are keen to point out) now belongs to the municipality of Sant'Ambrogio di Valpolicella. The little village stands on the top of a hill and is built of limestone from the nearby ancient quarries. The site was already frequented in prehistoric times; its particular strategic position made it a fortified settlement as soon as it became a permanent home for the population. Archaeological finds attest to human presence at San Giorgio from the first millennium BC until the arrival of the Romans in the 2nd–1st century BC. According to scholars, important settlements developed in Valpolicella from the 4th century BC; recent excavations at San Giorgio itself have brought to light “various fragments of pottery, animal bones, metalworking workshops, sherds incised with letters of the Raetic alphabet”, suggesting this site as the “historical link between the Raetians and the Arusnates”. But where did these Arusnates come from? When the Romans arrived in Valpolicella (2nd century BC), an organised people “with its own laws and its own cults” was already settled here. The name “Arusnati” appears on some inscriptions found at San Giorgio; but the most substantial evidence for the presence of a population with its own religious culture lies in the frequent documentary references to various local deities: Lualda, the Sun, the Moon, Cuslano, Ihamnagalla and Sqnnagalla. Several votive statuettes depicting various figures, including animals, have been found at San Giorgio. But far more important are the remains of a settlement dating from the 4th century BC, discovered in the area next to the three eastern apses of the pieve of San Giorgio. The excavation, which can be visited, has brought to light a complex inhabited site, spread over several descending levels cut into the living rock: from top to bottom, two settlements have been identified: the first comprises a cutting in the rock identified as a house-workshop, its floor formed by the squared levelling cut into the rock, and a cistern, a square hole in the terrace just below; they are dated to the first half of the 4th century BC (the cistern) and to the end of the same century (the house-workshop). At the lowest level scholars have identified a room used as a metalworking workshop, likewise created by cutting away the rock, which preserves a stretch of paving made of large limestone slabs. Other remains of various kinds, dating from the Roman period, are displayed in the small green area behind the three apses and in the cloister area (a sarcophagus carved from a single block of pink Verona stone, a monolithic wellhead in light limestone, column drums in Verona stone and in limestone, and the remains of a section of column with a capital decorated with acanthus leaves, as well as various blocks and stelae that cannot be further identified; another monumental sarcophagus with a flat lid is kept in the cloister). Other pre-Roman and Roman remains recovered on the site are kept in the small local museum: votive offerings to pagan gods, stelae, altars and Roman inscriptions (alongside other interesting early medieval finds, such as four decorated small arches – some only fragmentarily preserved – dating from the 8th century and contemporary with the ciborium, probably belonging to a chancel enclosure). The first mentions of San Giorgio date from the 11th century, in connection with various disputes concerning property rights over this territory; in the 12th century San Giorgio is described as a castrum, belonging half to the Count of Verona and half to the Bishop of Verona, a gift of the Marquis and Duke of Carinthia. Probably after the year 1187 the bishop alone held ownership of the castrum. At the beginning of the 13th century the curtis of San Giorgio passed to the commune of Verona, which remained its owner until the Scaliger period: in 1311 Valpolicella was granted by the Emperor Henry VII to Federico della Scala. The pieve has continued its functions up to the present day. This, broadly speaking, is the documentary information concerning the pieve, but analysis of certain architectural and decorative aspects of the building allows the origins of the parish church of San Giorgio di Valpolicella to be traced back to much earlier times than the 12th century attested by the documents. In any case, the settlement of San Giorgio is distinguished above all by its monumental and highly unusual parish church dedicated to the saint of the same name. Thus, even though the first document to mention the church of San Giorgio is a bull of Pope Eugene III of the year 1145, the origins of this monument are placed at the beginning of the 8th century. Light is shed in part on the functions of the first church and on the period in which to place it by the inscription carved on the small columns of the ciborium, which reveals the exact date when the ciborium itself, always one of the furnishings of the church of San Giorgio, was made: the year 712. From the outset the church served as a pieve. For dating the Romanesque part of the church, generally placed in the 12th century, it is worth recalling the earthquake of the year 1117, which must have seriously affected not only the nearby city of Verona but also Valpolicella. This was a decisive event that could explain any significant repair work on the church, or even point to the period following the earthquake as the time when the eastern part of the building was rebuilt in the Romanesque style. A rather rare case in Italy, the church has semicircular apses both at the east end (three of different sizes, the central one larger than the side ones) and one at the west end, the area traditionally occupied by the entrance; and indeed an entrance, in the middle of the hemicycle of this apse, was in fact made at a later date than the construction. The church of San Giorgio is built of light-coloured local limestone; scholars identify the remains of the first early medieval church in the masonry of much of the western part, with its single apse, while the larger eastern part, with the bell tower and the cloister, would be Romanesque constructions. The differences in execution that should distinguish the two building phases, separated in time (the first, early medieval church and the second, Romanesque church), are softened by the consistent use of the same type of building material, which gives the building a fairly compact and relatively homogeneous appearance. The church, as mentioned, has a basilican plan with two apses and a nave and two aisles, the side aisles being lower and narrower (the nave is twice as wide as the aisles). Here at the pieve the clergy lived in community, and the presence of the cloister and of the adjoining rooms, since it seems never to have been a monastic church, would support this, underlining the importance of the pieve of San Giorgio. The religious complex of San Giorgio di Valpolicella can be seen almost in its entirety today. Part of the north perimeter wall remains hidden, covered by a room now used as a museum (open, unfortunately, only on Sundays). The cloister, the eastern area with the adjoining pre-Roman remains, and the interior can be visited; the interior is reached through a portal now set in the hemicycle of the western apse. Measurements (in paces: one pace corresponds to about 0.90 metres): West façade: 18 paces Projection of the west apse: 2 paces Length of the south side up to the bell tower: 20 paces Length of the bell tower (south side): 6 paces Projection of the bell tower from the south side: 4 paces Distance from the bell tower to the east front (excluding apses): 10 paces The measurements reveal the remarkable balance of the building; indeed, the width of the church façade (18 paces) corresponds to a length twice as great (36 paces). West apse area (see photo west apse area) It is precisely this part of the building that shows the most significant constructional discrepancies compared with the essential homogeneity of the church's masonry, which is easy to ascertain given the extreme plainness of the architectural structure: flat, linear, compact, unrelieved by any decorative or sculptural device. In the northern section, corresponding to the end of the aisle, in the parts of the apse not compromised by the insertion of the portal, and in the upper front of the nave, where two simple single-light windows are set, the assembly of the blocks (not of large size), roughly worked and laid in fairly horizontal courses in thick layers of mortar, gives the structure the same building characteristics as the rest of the building; the southern section, corresponding to the end of the aisle, shows restorations and alterations. Starting from the upper parts, there are in fact haphazard brick insertions, beneath which the masonry would seem to bear the marks of three transverse arches of unequal width, the smallest of which, to the south, now frames a stretch of plastered wall with remains of sinopias. The southern corner is also different, being made of large, well-squared limestone blocks starting about a metre above the foundation plinth. In this section of the west end of the aisle, the difference from the central section, which was probably subject to additions, is evident from the rough building technique, the insertion of bricks and the uneven assembly. The present roof of the apse is surmounted by a band of slightly projecting blocks set on a slope, probably a sign of an older roof arrangement; the roof is now of curved tiles, just as curved tiles cover the roofs of the nave and aisles and are partly used for the roofs of the cloister and of the eastern apses as well, supplemented by large stone slabs. On the southern side of the apse hemicycle, in the plastered part, a few traces of an old painted decoration remain. South side (see south side photo) The southern longitudinal wall of the nave, where seven splayed single-light windows open, and that of the aisle are built, as mentioned, of small, roughly worked light-coloured limestone blocks. The bell tower and one side of the cloister cover part of the perimeter wall of the aisle, and in the exposed stretch there are two openings: a rectangular door with a crowning arch marked by a two-coloured radiating frame of brick and tufa, raised about half a metre above the ground, and another squared door, located near the bell tower. The section between the bell tower and the cloister colonnade is occupied by a room now used, and perhaps formerly too, as a sacristy. Beside it begin the arcades and covered walks of the cloister. Here there is another entrance to the church, used by the canons, in addition to the door opening onto the churchyard of the eastern area next to the archaeological zone. A slight projecting stone cornice runs about half a metre above both levels at which the aisle roofs join the wall, perhaps a sign of where the roofs were once attached. North side The same type of masonry as the south longitudinal wall also characterises the north side of the building, differing only slightly in the foundation plinth, which has large sandstone blocks levelled on the exposed face, and returning, in the upper parts, to the arrangement in horizontal courses of smaller blocks typical of all the masonry of the church. There are no openings on this side. Nave A curious feature is the system adopted for the roofs along the sides of the nave. The top of the nave wall rises a good metre above the level of the eaves of the roof, marked by a long series of square holes to drain rainwater; this structural feature hides the roofs from view and, together with the compact bulk of the bell tower, gives the whole a massive, almost fortress-like appearance. East apse area (see photo east apse area) The whole eastern part of the building shows homogeneous building characteristics which, probably because they offer no significant ornamental architectural features, give the complex parts of the building (minor apses, main apse, east front of the nave and the plastered raised section corresponding to the presbytery area) an elevation that is at once sober and complex, compensating for the lack of decoration and ornament with varied and monumental volumetric rhythms. The three apses generally display masonry of white stone blocks of various sizes, barely levelled on the exposed faces, bedded in abundant mortar and arranged in fairly regular horizontal courses up to the eaves, where the masonry gradually projects, with brick repairs. There are no significant decorative details; the masonry is flat and rustic. The three hemicycles are roofed with stone slabs and curved tiles. The south apse (see south apse photo) appears almost squeezed between the hemicycle of the main apse and the dividing wall of the cloister, which extends eastwards to enclose old monastic rooms as well. A slight difference in the laying of the blocks compared with the apses reveals that this extension was partly built after the construction of the cloister. In this section of wall the remains of a squared window, now blocked, can be seen, with monolithic jambs and lintel, surmounted by a heavily worn stone hood, and a horizontal hood, also of stone, runs eastwards along the whole wall. The door leading from the cloister to the churchyard of the eastern apse area is squared and probably rebuilt, since the original jamb can still be seen next to the present one. Monolithic blocks form the sill, and the present lintel is surmounted by a sort of stone hood. Among the Roman finds reused in the Romanesque reconstruction of San Giorgio, between the north apsidiole and the central apse, a block is set into the wall bearing an inscription in Latin letters: “LVALDAE” The accompanying label gives this explanation: “Internal fragment of an unidentifiable monument. It could be part of a name or of a dedication to the goddess LUALDA, a deity who presided over the fertility of the fields and was worshipped only in Valpolicella: 1st century AD”. There are five openings in the apse hemicycles: three splayed single-light windows in the central apse, with round-headed arches made from single blocks of dark tufa, and one splayed single-light window with a tufa arch in each side apse. The present roof line of the side apses is lower than the original arrangement. A projecting cornice at an acute angle remains visible, probably a sign of the old position of the roof, but one is puzzled by the considerable lowering of the roofs of the two apsidioles. The roof of the main apse has also been lowered, though less noticeably than those of the minor apses. Amid the orderly, monochrome masonry of the eastern area, some projecting fragments of unclear function are striking. In the hemicycle of the main apse, both near the arch of the southern single-light window and in the central one, to the right of the opening, projecting squared blocks are set into the wall, one at the base of the arch of the southern window and two in line with the right jamb of the central window, perhaps serving as supports for small columns or as fixings for wooden shutters. continued >>>