Parish Church of Santa Stefania

Today the pieve church of S. Stefania stands on the plain south of the village of Nuvolento, in open countryside, between the first foothills of the Lombard Prealps and the valley formed by the river Chiese. The religious complex today consists of the church, the bell tower and the cemetery that extends over the ground in front of the façade of the church ( see photo of general view) , while to the east, in the area north of the apse and along the south side wall, again near the apse, various buildings have been constructed, mostly modern, used for agricultural purposes. The documents mention as the first holder of the office of pievano a certain “D. Martino”, archpriest between 1130 and 1138. (There is also a record of the presence, in those years, of a “ castro diruto ” (ruined castle) next to the pieve and of a chapel dedicated to St. John the Baptist, probably the baptistery of the pieve). The dedication to St. Stefania would seem to be a popular distortion, deriving from a particular feast that has been celebrated here in Nuvolento since ancient times, with the participation also of the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages: 2 August, today the feast of the “Perdon d’Assisi”, which in the liturgical calendar is dedicated to St. Stephen I, Pope and Martyr. Scholars attribute to this date an anniversary linked to the probable consecration of the church, which the inhabitants of Nuvolento continued to commemorate by extending the celebrations - “la sagra” - to the following day as well, 3 August, which corresponds in the liturgical calendar to St. Stephen the Protomartyr (who, with St. Lawrence and St. Vincent, is remembered as one of the deacon protomartyrs). From this, from the name “Stefanía” indicating the two days dedicated to the Sts. Stephen, would have derived the dedication of the pieve church to St. Stefanía, a hypothetical female saint with the mystical attributes of “virgin martyr” (this saint is unknown to the Roman Martyrology). In the Middle Ages, the fortunes and events of the pieve of Nuvolento were directly linked to the fate of the nearby and powerful monastery of S. Pietro al Monte Ursino at Serle (an 11th-century foundation and a flourishing institution in the central centuries of the Middle Ages): “ what is certain is that in the 11th and 12th centuries the monastery had supremacy over the pieve [1] ”. Only later did the pieve break away, becoming an independent institution, and although the first archpriest was already recorded in 1130, complete autonomy came only some centuries later. There is no documentation that would allow the construction of the church of S. Stefania to be placed within a precise time frame. Although they remain within the canons of the Romanesque architecture of the 11th and 12th centuries, the present structures do not allow a more precise dating, having been subject to additions, some of them modern, as well as to restoration and work in the 14th and 15th centuries for the construction of the internal transverse arches and the painting of part of the pictorial decoration (not forgetting the earthquake of 1117 and the evident signs of interruptions in building in the masonry of the bell tower). The present Romanesque complex is formed by the bell tower and the church building, which has a rectangular plan with a single semicircular apse to the east ( see photo of apse) , a simple gabled façade to the west ( see photo of façade) , and is roofed with curved tiles. No decorative detail marks the exterior, thus giving the architectural forms of this massive monument that appearance of essentiality which characterises so many outlying Romanesque buildings of the 11th and 12th centuries, rustic and compact constructions built at the wish of the country people, poor but devoutly Catholic. The church is built, for the most part, of light-coloured limestone (see north side, details), roughly squared, laid fairly regularly in horizontal courses, set in thick layers of mortar. Maintenance work is evident precisely in these mortars, which are now covered by a cement pointing. This building system survives above all on the north side wall, on the façade and in the stretch of masonry near the façade on the south side. A closer analysis of the elevation also makes it possible to locate sections of masonry (in the upper parts under the north pitch of the façade, in a stretch of wall on the north side, between the corner of the façade and the slit-like single-light window, and on the east front of the nave, above the apse) of cruder execution, made also with pebbles and rough stones set in thick mortar. The only breaks in the flat, compact outer walls are the openings: on the façade, the square-headed portal in white stone, surmounted by a triangular lunette with a large oculus above it, both recent work (16th–17th century); a narrow slit window and a door surmounted by a Baroque triangular pseudo-porch, facing the bell tower, on the north side; three single-light windows of different sizes in the apse semicircle, with two square windows, inserted in the Baroque period, on the sides of the east front of the nave; and three windows on the south side wall (partly covered by modern residential buildings), of which one is still a narrow window set right at the edge of the roof and two are wide square windows, post-medieval work. The masonry of the apse in the stretch that can be visited to the north (the part of the semicircle to the south is now enclosed in a private vegetable garden) appears much less homogeneous, with conspicuous differences in the composition of the masonry. The lower parts, in places, follow the building patterns adopted in the outer walls, reaching roughly the height of the single-light window on this side of the semicircle; then the laying of the stones becomes rougher: the inserts of pebbles and unworked blocks become more substantial (in the stretch of the semicircle near the point where it joins the nave, there is a conspicuous blocking, perhaps of an original door or window), while a stretch of the eaves is made of terracotta. Also of terracotta is the only blind hanging arch, perhaps part of a decoration that must have run along all the upper parts of the apse ( see photo of small arch) . In the rest of the eaves the squared blocks reappear, set slightly projecting to form a sort of cornice. More or less in the centre of the semicircle, a stretch of pilaster strip has survived, between the northern and the central single-light windows (further decorative evidence of old structures on which substantial remodelling and additions were later carried out at various times), perhaps contemporary with the single brick hanging arch near the junction with the nave, of which only a stump remains, set just below the level of the roof. On the south side of the apse semicircle, the building structures are more intact, though here too they show intrusions and constructional discontinuities ( see photo of apse 2) . The masonry of roughly squared stones of different sizes, with the visible face lightly smoothed, set in thick mortar, reaches almost the level of the eaves, which are here entirely marked by the projecting cornice of light-coloured blocks. As evidence of a certain structural homogeneity, two pilaster strips remain visible, although truncated in the lower parts and at their upper ends. In these southern sections of masonry no remains of brick rampant arches have survived; note also the slight differences in the building of the upper parts, which could indicate alterations and rebuilding, perhaps as early as the Middle Ages. The central and the southern single-light windows would seem to be of equal size, with the southern one not exactly centred between the two pilaster strips. Just above this opening, on the left, there is evident restoration work. At the bottom, the foundation plinth projects only slightly from the sections of masonry above. The church measures 32 paces in length from the west corner to the east corner. 5 paces is the measurement of the projection of the apse semicircle, and 15 paces that of the width of the façade; the building as a whole is not very tall, in contrast with the considerable vertical development of the bell tower. [1] Taken from the internet “ La pieve di Santa Stefania a Nuvolento: un percorso fra storia e pittura”: a multimedia CD-ROM edited by Riccardo Bartoletti continued >>>