Key to Umbria: Spoleto
 


San Michele Arcangelo di Eggi (12th century)


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This church, which is beside the entrance to the walled village, probably pre-dates the erection of the fortifications.  It has an asymmetric floor plan: a second nave was added when the surrounding walls were built in the 14th century.  Further modifications were carried out in 1525, when the church passed to Giuseppe Rancani

The campanile (1704-16), which originally formed part of the fortifications, was rebuilt after the earthquake of 1703.


Interior


The church has a nave and two aisles, with two dividing walls pierced by arches. 

The two naves were re-vaulted in 1951-2.  This new vaulting was removed from the main nave in 1995, at which point frescoes were discovered high up on its walls.

Frescoes (15th century) 

The majority of the votive frescoes that cover the walls date to the 15th century.  The frescoes here are from the inner surface of the second arch between the nave and the left aisle.







Frescoes by the Maestro di Eggi

Federico Zeri (1963) designated a number of frescoes in the church as the autograph works of the Maestro di Eggi.  One of the defining characteristics of the work of this artist is the distinctive physiogamy.  This group includes:

  1. St Michael (1448), a particularly fine fresco below the two illustrated above, which is dated by inscription;







  1. the Madonna and Child and St Catherine of Alexandria, on the left wall;

  2. two frescoes of the Madonna and Child, on the outer surface of the first arch between the nave and the left aisle;

  3. the Madonna and Child (1451), on the outer surface of the second arch between the nave and the left aisle;

  4. St Bernardino of Siena, [where ??]










  1. St Lucy, under the second arch between the nave and the left aisle.








St Helen (1474)

This fresco on the inner surface of the first arch between the nave and the left aisle is dated by inscription.  It depicts St Helen, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, who holds a Crucifix that refers to her discovery of the True Cross. 





Madonna della Quercia (1515)

The inscription below this fresco on the inner surface of the first arch between the nave and the left aisle records the date and the name of the donor, Zuccarus Cucciolicti.  The cult of Santa Maria della Quercia (Our Lady of the Oak Tree) was associated with an image of the Virgin that a farmer hung it upon the trunk of an oak tree outside Viterbo.  This image became an object of pilgrimage after it protected the local people from an outbreak of plague in 1467.  Pope Julius II, who used an oak tree as his heraldic symbol, popularised the cult in the early 16th century. 


  

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