Virgilio Lucarini gave this site to the Dominicans [in the 17th century]. A Lombard burial was discovered here during the construction of the Dominican complex. Virgilio’s nephew, Reginaldo, who belonged to the Dominican Order, gave part of his considerable inheritance to the complex.
The community was suppressed in the Napoleonic period and the hospital from San Giovanni Decollato was moved to the site. This photograph shows the Dominican complex after its adaptation to house the hospital and before its subsequent demolition.
Art from the Church
Miracle of St Vincent Ferrar (ca. 1729)
Cornice of a Processional Standard (ca. 1478)
This double-sided cornice was documented in 1872 in the hospital in the ex-convent of San Domenico and is now in the Pinacoteca. Each side has an image of Christ in a tondo with two angles below: the Crucified Christ is on one side and the Risen Christ is on the other. The cornice probably belonged to a processional banner, and the fact that the Crucified Christ is depicted with two whips makes it likely that it had belonged to a penitential confraternity. The cornice is attributed to Pierantonio Mezzastris, and may well have been commissioned after the outbreak of plague in Trevi in 1478.
Sources in the 18th century document a gilded cornice with an image of the Crucified Christ above a panel of the Assumption of the Virgin on the altar of the now-demolished church of Santa Maria della Piaggia, which belonged to the penitential Confraternita di Santa Maria della Piaggia. This was probably the side of cornice illustrated above, to the left. If this link is correct, it is possible to reconstruct the history of the cornice before 1872. The likelihood is that, when Santa Maria della Piaggia was abandoned, the possessions of the confraternity passed to the Compagnia della Misercordia, who administered the hospice at San Giovanni Decollato. These goods would have been moved again to the new hospital at San Domenico in 1817. At some point in this tortuous history, the main panel of the Assumption of the Virgin (which was probably also double-sided) must have been lost.
