Art
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Across the Guerna Bridge, resume the route leading to the village of Adrara S. Martino. In the piazza is the majestic Parish Church of S. Martino Vescovo, which increases in value the ancient buildings with portals and noble stemmi. In the XV century, the community of Adrara S. Martino decided to spend the considerable legacy of a cardinal, born in this place, to build a Parish Church of magnificent shapes and materials. Therefore a Lombardo Gothic building was founded, provided with three eastern apses, four traverse arches and a beam ceiling.The structure was considerably modified from 1701 to 1787, to answer the parish needs. The presbytery and the hall were enlarged and changed into Neo-Renaissance style. It was also provided with Tuscan stone pillars and barrel and cap vaults.
As an evidence for its Quattrocento origins, the perimetric walls are still remaining, together with the bell tower, the small side apse made of shaped stone and some fragments incorporated in the façade. An opening at the foundations of the campanile, keeps the medieval design of the triangular solid wooden lintel, bearing the engraved date of 1423, year in which the church works ended up.
The façade, rising to the west, is arranged in two registers by a large cornice: the lower row is marked by four pilasters provided with stone base and capitals, whereas the upper one, which is also marked by four pilasters, ends up with a triangular gable.
In the centre of the façade are a beautiful portal with piers, a sandstone shaped lintel and a window lights the interior. The nave is marked by seven spans of different dimensions ending to the east with a rectangular presbytery and covered by a painted barrel vault. The first span on the left is occupied by the octagonal Fonte Battesimale with a black marble basin and by a wooden carved tempietto datable back to the ‘600. All the other spans, are featured by chapels with neoclassic altars carried out mostly during the ‘800; each altar is decorated by paintings by the best artists of the XIX century : by Giacomo Trécourt is the altar-piece of the Immacolata (1847) and the Miracolo di San Martino in the central ancona (1854): by Giovanni Carnovali, called The Piccio, is the Madonna del Rosario (1849) and by Francesco Coghetti is the Martirio dei Santi Fermo e Rustico (1868). The altar-piece of the Crocifisso is by Giuseppe Carsana, the Misteri del Rosario by Giuseppe Cornelli, the Sacra Famiglia on the side of the presbyterium is by Giuseppe Riva (1896) and the Madonna di Pompei by Abramo Spinelli (1905). Among the paintings hanging by the walls of the church, the following is to remember: the Immacolata and the Morte di San Martino by Angelo Paglia coming from Brescia (1730) and the Madonna dell Rosario by an unknown painter.
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The church of Sacro Cuore, on the parish churchyard, was erected as a funeral chapel in the inner side of the ancient graveyard :at the beginning of the ‘700 was changed into a church to carry out the suffrage functions celebrated by the members of the Congregazione dei disciplini della Morte. During the First World War, the church was dedicated to the Sacro Cuore di Gesù as a memorial to the soldiers. Its triangular façade facing the mountain, is devided into vertical sections by stone pilasters with brick capitals, supporting the cornice.
In the upper side, the slopes of the roof delimit the triangular gable with a fresco showing two rows of Confratelli in adorazione del SS Sacramento. In the centre of the lower part, is the entrance portal bordered with sandstone and leading into a lower rectangular vaulted chamber. Beyond is the octagonal church covered by an eight-segment vault and lighted by a couple of opposed windows. In the four smaller sides there are statues located in niches. The barrel-vaulted rectangular presbytery contains the high altar of polychrome marbles decorated with a medallion displaying San Francesco che riceve le stimmate on the front side of the altar. Many decorations are datable to our century.
Outside the built-up area, take the new route up to Collepiano, a borgo made up of farmhouses and country buildings plunged into vegetation. In this village without a proper centre, is the superb and magnificent San Carlo Church founded at the beginning of XVII century and made parish in 1947: the building is made up of a rectangular unique chamber provided with presbyterium, semicircular choir and barrel vault placed above the cornicione.
On the town route crossing the village of Mascherpinga, is the San Giuseppe small church, founded between 1626 and 1673. The simple triangular façade facing the mountain, is flanked by pilasters supporting the ending trabeation with few openings. Two windows are put beside the entrance portal, whereas in the upper side, a semicircular window lights up the interior. In the second bay are two recesses containing the statues of The Vergine and San Giuseppe. Beyond is the rectangular presbyterium richly decorated with Baroque stuccoes which are displayed on the triumphal arch and in the bottom of the wall. In the centre of the bay upon the presbyterium, the figure of The Padre Eterno stands out.
The high altar in black marble and polichrome inlays is pushed against the end wall: in the front side of the altar, an oval marble medalillon displays the Madonna Assunta. Over the altar is the painting of The Vergine and San Giovanni inserted in a beautiful frame and put beside stained-glass windows. The church decoration includes also other paintings datable from ‘600 and ‘700 among which the Transito di San Giovanni over the entrance door.
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In the hamlet of Squadra is the church of San Rocco built on the top of the hill dominating the village of Adrara San Martino. Originally it dealt with a chapel dedicated to the Vergine Maria, but in 1855, the villagers decided to enlarge it and change it. The works started in 1874 but progressed so slowly during the years that only in 1908 it was possible to place the Santo Protettore’s statue.
Today the church displays a simple façade separated by three stone based pilasters supporting a curvilinear crowning; in the centre is the entrance portal, the border of which dates 1855 and 1919 are carved. Internally the brick-floored nave joins the presbyterium containing the marble altar.
Back to the main piazza, go to Adrara San Rocco: shortly before the village, admire the Santuario della Madonna del Monte Oliveto on the right.
Since former times, the villagers of Valpezze, dedicated a small shrine to Maria Vergine building it on a hill overlooking the Guerna valley. In 1600 the shrine was eliminated to place a church that in the following years was endowed with a bell tower, a churchyard and a chaplain’s house.
The church, traditionally oriented to the east, displays a high façade, flanked by pilasters and separated in three registers by a pair of cornicioni, one in brickwork and the other in stonework; the church ends with two-slope eaves. In the lower register are three sandstone framed openings: two windows and a portal, which in the centre, anticipates pillars supporting a lintel and a broken gable.
In the first level, three niches house the statues of the Madonna, San Martino, and San Rocco. In the intermediate section, a three-light window is displayed, with an arch in the middle flanked by flat lintels. Internally, the chamber is devided in three bays by brickwork pilasters supporting both the cornicione and the above barrel vault.
In the third bay, are two covered barrel chapels dedicated to the Santi Rocco and Sebastiano (on the left), Carlo, Giuseppe and Bernardino (on the right). The nave is joined up to a presbyterium with a high altar ending with a semicircular choir furnished with wooden inlaid stalls. The walls are decorated with paintings of different ages, among which, those at the side altars, show: Santi Tommaso, Giuseppe and Carlo by Giacomo Dolfino (1636) and Santi Rocco, Alessandro and Sebastiano by Sebastiano Cima (1636).
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History
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After going beyond the Little Church of St. Alessandro in Canzanica and trough the little bridge on the Guerna stream, you have to take the main road again, which, on the right, leads to the town centre of Adrara San Martino.
This town was already the seat of prehistoric and roman settlements, as witnessed by some finds of the last century; it had an important role during the medieval period and the castle, of which only a few foundation ruins on the Ducone Hill can be perceived, is a remaining witness of this fact.
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In the town square, which partly still keeps an old conformation and along the main Road Longo, ancient buildings made with big white square rocks and portals with noble armorial bearings can be admired, which seem to be set in a frame by the imposing Parish Church dedicated to St. Martino.
The structure of this church goes back to the XV th century, even if the tradition states that during the Carolingian Age a church risen on the ruins of a roman little temple dedicated to the Goddess Diana has already been built in the same place.
The building underwent substantial transformations during the XVIII th century, above all the widening of the presbyterial space and the lengthening of the hall. The front is embellished by the presence of mounted medieval findings and by the beautiful portal made with richly carved sandstone. An eighteen-century niche in which some gravestones of 1330 and 1338 are inserted is in front of it.
At the inside of this church, some excellent paintings of the XVIII th century are worthy of attention, among which an “Immaculate Conception” and a “Death of St. Martino” , both by Angelo Paglia (1730), beside some nineteen-century paintings as a “Our Lady of The Rosary” by Giovanni Carnovali called The Piccio (1847), a “Martyr of the Saints Fermo and Rustico” by Francesco Coghetti (1868) and an altar-piece of the “Immaculate Conception” by Giacomo Trécourt (1847) in the altar having the same name.
The massive bell- tower, in local whitish stone with ogival windows at the same height as the belfry, dates back to the XV th century.
Nowadays, the town centre of Adrara San Martino keeps a considerable number of valuable buildings as for architecture ad style, which go back to different ages, from the medieval to the neoclassical one. Furthermore, the rural architecture is particularly worthy of attention, from the stables scattered among the numberless and wonderful meadows, to the oldest town districts; this is an artistic and cultural heritage, that, even if it’s classifiable as “minor”, should be properly safeguarded and exploited.
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Starting from the square, you have to take the main road to Adrara San Rocco and, a little before reaching the built-up area, on a slope at the middle of the hill at the right of the carriageway, the lonely Sanctuary of The Olive Grove Mountain can be perceived. The building was risen in 1630 to replace a niche dedicated to The Holy Mary.
At the inside, some paintings of the XVII-XVIII th century, with the central altar-piece of “Our Lady of the Assumption” by Francesco Zucco.
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