Fabriano Cathedral: The Cathedral Church of Saint Venantius in Italy
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Papal States
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page21 sections
History
Fabriano Cathedral is the principal church of Fabriano, Italy, and the seat of the Diocese of Fabriano-Matelica. Dedicated to Saint Venantius of Camerino, a Christian martyr and the church’s titular religious patron, it developed into a Baroque cathedral through successive medieval and early modern building campaigns.
Medieval origins and expansion
The origins of the church are uncertain, but Saint Venantius was under construction in the castle of Poggio by 1047, when a local nobleman donated a house to it. In 1253, Bishop Guglielmo transferred the baptistery to Saint Venantius. This established the church as Fabriano’s mother church, and several religious and charitable institutions subsequently grew beside it, including confraternities dedicated to the Blessed Sacrament, the Penitents, and suffrage, together with a hospital.
A major enlargement took place during the second half of the fourteenth century under Gioioso Chiavelli, the capitular prior. The medieval project included the apse and the tribune, an elevated or architecturally distinct section associated with the main liturgical space. Elements of this fourteenth-century complex survive in the polygonal apse, the cloister, and the Chapel of San Lorenzo.
Rebuilding in the seventeenth century
By the beginning of the seventeenth century, the church had seriously deteriorated. The condition was partly connected with the conflicts of the sixteenth century between ecclesiastics and the Chiavelli faction, a prominent local family involved in Fabriano’s political struggles. Influenced by reforming ideas, the authorities chose to rebuild the church entirely.
Muzio Oddi of Urbino designed the new project, which received approval in 1601. Construction ran from 1607 to 1617, after which Francesco Silva of Ticino decorated the new interior with stucco. The rebuilt church was consecrated in 1663. Fabriano became a diocese in 1728, and Saint Venantius then became its cathedral.
Later changes and status
The bell tower was demolished in 1825 for reasons of structural stability and replaced by the present tower, designed by Ermogaste Bonfili. The Marquis Onofrio del Grillo was buried in the cathedral on 6 January 1787, in a tomb formerly positioned before the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. In March 1963, Pope John XXIII granted the church the honorific status of minor basilica.
Remains
Fabriano Cathedral stands in its namesake square in the upper part of Fabriano. Its surviving fabric combines a Baroque brick facade and a seventeenth-century interior with the Gothic exterior of the fourteenth-century apse, the nineteenth-century bell tower, and medieval chapels containing important frescoes.
Facade, apse, and bell tower
The brick facade rises in three sections, with a central part wider and taller than the two sides. A carved marble cornice divides it into two superimposed zones, while an undecorated pediment completes the composition. The lower zone has three portals and uses Doric pilasters. The central portal is crowned by a triangular pediment supported by two semicolumns. Ionic pilasters organize the upper zone, which contains a central arched window.
The fourteenth-century apse presents a Gothic exterior. Its lower portion is faced with large blocks of white stone and contains eleven pointed blind arches. A Gothic aedicule occupies the central arch, while the upper part remains unfinished. The nineteenth-century bell tower stands beside the apse.
Nave, chapels, and presbytery
The interior follows a Latin-cross plan, with a long single nave intersected by the transept. Large rectangular windows light the space, which is covered by a sail vault. Ten rectangular side chapels, five on each side, were created during the early-seventeenth-century rebuilding. Each chapel has an altar, a coffered barrel vault, and a marble balustrade.
The presbytery occupies the deep apse and rises several steps above the nave floor. Its central high altar has a decorated frontal, the panel attached to the front of an altar, formed from polychrome marble in geometric patterns. An old crucifix stands behind it. Wooden choir stalls run around the apse, and the bishop’s cathedra, the official chair symbolizing the bishop’s teaching office, is placed on the right.
Changes to the apse partly concealed the fourteenth-century frescoes produced by the Fabriano school, the local artistic tradition associated with artists working in and around Fabriano. Some of these paintings remain visible in the spaces between the two apses.
Right-hand chapels
First Chapel
The first chapel on the right contains a seventeenth-century copy of Michelangelo’s Vatican Pietà on its altar. Salvator Rosa’s Saint Nicholas of Tolentino in Glory and Saint Jerome, painted between 1635 and 1637, occupy the side walls.
Second Chapel
The second right-hand chapel has a modern form. It was formerly decorated with three paintings by Giovan Francesco Guerrieri.
Third Chapel
The third chapel contains an old image of the Madonna and Child that may date from the fourteenth century. The image is set within an oval surrounded by stucco cherubs and enclosed by a carved, gilded frame. Extensive repainting prevents a reliable assessment of the original image. Two anonymous paintings flank it, including a Saint Jerome based on a fresco by Lazzaro Baldi.
Fourth Chapel
The fourth chapel contains Giovan Francesco Guerrieri’s 1629 altarpiece, Saint Philip Neri Adoring the Madonna and Child in Glory. Paintings of the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa and Saint Ignatius with Another Saint flank the altarpiece.
Fifth Chapel
The remaining chapel on the right was probably decorated by Giuseppe Puglia in 1627 and 1628. Its principal painting is The Virgin Interceding with Jesus for the Souls in Purgatory, accompanied on the sides by The Delivery of the Keys and Christ and the Pious Women. The vault contains a fresco of God the Father in Glory among angels. Monochrome saints and allegorical figures fill the undersides of the arches, while the frescoes are attributed to Giovan Battista Foschi and belong to the third decade of the seventeenth century.
Transept and medieval chapels
Transept chapels
Two chapels occupy the arms of the transept. The chapel on the right is dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, and the chapel on the left to the Blessed Sacrament. Both are decorated with frescoes by Giuseppe Bastiani.
Chapel of San Lorenzo
The Chapel of San Lorenzo opens from the apse through the wooden choir stalls. It preserves Allegretto Nuzi’s frescoes of the Life of Saint Lawrence, probably painted around 1365 and based on the account by Jacopo da Varagine, the Dominican author of the Golden Legend, a major medieval collection of saints’ lives. Nuzi also painted the chapel’s Madonna and Child with Saint Venantius.
Chapel of Santa Croce
The Chapel of Santa Croce is more easily reached from the sacristy and is divided into two rooms. The first contains Crucifixion and Saint Helena at Prayer by Giovanni di Corraduccio of Foligno. The second contains the so-called Master of San Verecondo’s Martyrdom of Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Francis, together with Allegretto Nuzi’s Crucifixion in the final recess. The Master of San Verecondo is an unidentified artist known by a conventional name derived from works associated with Saint Verecondo.
Left-hand chapels
Fifth Chapel
The fifth chapel on the left has stucco decoration on its vault. Its altar bears Claudio Ridolfi’s Madonna and Child with Saint Felician, Bishop, and Saint Crispin, accompanied by stucco statues of the same saints. The side walls contain frescoes of the Martyrdoms of Saint George and Saint Peter. These paintings date from the early seventeenth century and have been heavily repainted by unidentified artists.
Vallemani Chapel
The fourth chapel on the left, known as the Vallemani Chapel or Chapel of the Crucifix, contains Orazio Gentileschi’s major decorative cycle, created between 1613 and 1616. Its altar painting is the Crucifixion with the Mourners and Magdalene, with stucco statues of two prophets and a Risen Christ above it.
The frescoes present scenes from the Passion of Christ, including the Agony in the Garden on the right wall and the Kiss of Judas on the left. The vault contains Christ Crowned with Thorns, the Eternal Father in Glory, and the Flagellated Christ. Small panels with stucco reliefs alternate with frescoes of saints on the underside of the arch.
Organ
The cathedral contains the Mascioni pipe organ, opus 778, built in 1959. Its electric-action mechanism is housed in two older carved wooden cases on the choir lofts beside the presbytery. The console stands beside the high altar and has two 61-note keyboards and a 32-note concave-radial pedalboard.
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