San Giovanni in Valle

Fragments of sculpture from the church decoration

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Indietro Avanti Zoom

Most of the fragments of sculpture of church furnishings that until a short time ago belonged to the so-called Temple Collection came from San Giovanni. They are now located partly in the Monastery and also in the Archaeological Museum and the Christian Museum, but they will be shortly be brought together in a new location in what will be the Museum of the Monastery and of the Temple. The works that seem most clearly to belong to an antique phase of the church of San Giovanni, perhaps even to the original church, are represented by a probable lunette and by a door architrave, which were built into the façade of the building in the 18th century. They are made with techniques that call to mind examples of the last Byzantine production rather than the early medieval style, so they may be placed chronologically between the late 6th and, perhaps, the early 7th century. Despite some differences in style – with the lunette which seems to be more balanced and elegant - they might have belonged at the start to a homogenous unit decorating one of the entrance doors of the church. A decoration of the church in the first half of the 8th century is recalled by a fine slab with lambs carrying crosses and other animals in front of the catharos which recovers the motifs of early Christian tradition, but now reinterpreted in a different style. This slab is an example of the significant and rich period for sculpture that developed in Cividale during the rule of Duke Pemmo and the Patriarch Calixtus, with works outstanding for their quality on the scene of the so-called renaissance of Liutprand, of which they represent an influential moment.  A more important renovation of the furnishings in the presbytery of the church, with great slabs featuring floral decorations inserted in modular spaces, seems to belong to the following period, in the middle of the 8th century, perhaps at the beginning of the long thirty-year period of office of the Patriarch Siguald (756-787): an age rich in influence and experience that combined a plurality of linguistic forms and that coincides with the moulded stucco and brick decoration of the Temple. The later developments of late Longobard sculpture are also found in other elements from San Giovanni or, more generally, from the Monastery, such as the slabs used in the so-called Tomb of Piltrude, which can be seen in the Temple, or in a series of elements, especially slabs or tympanums, characterised by the frequent use of shoots of greenery tied in coils by tapes with two or three holes, by the decoration with bands of S facing each other and tied together, and by the depiction of animals that are much more schematic and with a flatter relief than in previous experiences. There are also two interesting imitation Corinthian capitals with large dimensions, coming from a colonnade with a structural function. One of these exhibits in the Archaeological Museum is clearly comparable to the capitals of the pergola and the presbytery in the Temple, even though the workmanship is more approximate and imprecise.

The last phase of the renovation of San Giovanni documented by sculpted furnishings concerns the reconstruction of the presbytery enclosure in the Carolingian period.

RECONSTRUCTION OF THE PRESBYTERY ENCLOSURE IN THE CAROLINGIAN PERIOD

Towards the end of the 8th century a general and extensive change can be noted in the models and decorative concepts of church furnishings. The strong movement in favour of renewal that emerged in the Carolingian world from the first decades of Charlemagne’s reign soon led, in sculpture, to an adaptation to different canons, in which it took up more and more space. This is also found at Cividale, probably already under the Patriarch Paulinus (787-802), in the first Carolingian period, when an important activity of internal renewal of the furnishings involved both the bishop's palace and San Giovanni in Valle. Some fragments of sculpture, from the Monastery, are an important reminder of the decorations that enhanced the church during this period.
In particular this concerned plutei and pillars with the typical decoration featuring geometrically interwoven canes, sometimes including animals, which allow us to form a hypothesis of the appearance of the front of the Carolingian presbytery of San Giovanni in Valle.