Genoa, churches and the "common sense": S. Maria delle Vigne

In recent months, our attention was drawn to the ancient abbey of S. Stefano, where monthly (first Friday), and for other occasions, occasionally, we celebrate the Holy Mass in the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite (the third church in Genoa, after St. Charles and Fegino and second centrally located) had been noticed on that occasion the perfect orientation of the apse to the east ( "East", "guidance" precisely ...);

Curious to see if other churches have the same peculiarity has been great, and use Google Earth ... so it's easy to submit the other churches of "common sense" (where by "sense" refers to the direction of the apse ...), some 'time.

This Sunday we begin with S. Maria delle Vigne, in Piazza delle Vigne (Old Town).

The name of the basilica of Santa Maria delle Vigne is due to the vision of the Virgin Mary by a child (X - XI century) who had gone to play in the vineyards of the area, then outside the walls. Vision was at once created a small dome that gradually enlarged to become the largest basilica in the historic center of Genoa, second only to the Cathedral of San Lorenzo. Was several times since the thirteenth century, with the first injection of roof trusses that still retains the seventeenth century over the vault of the nave.

Romanesque architecture of the original elements are still present, as well as in time, even in the walls and under the pavement, even though the only part that has remained intact since its construction appears to be to the left of the transept, the only bell tower placed between the perimeter walls of the church and cloister. The bell tower is open at the base and crossed by a sweeping arc that allows the transit road, and the top is softened by elegant sets of double windows and pentafore.

The cloister - built, like that of the church of San Siro Strupp around 1025 - spread over two floors that enclose the courtyard of a quadrangular structure. It is entered from the left side of the road that runs along the tower. It too has undergone major changes while retaining its archaic style characterized especially by the squat form of columns and capitals.

The current main facade of the basilica - long remained unfinished - dates back to 1842. Of late neoclassical style, is the work of Hippolytus Cremona. The largest and most complex major changes to the original Romanesque Basilica of Santa Maria delle Vigne have occurred since the end of '500, when it was decided the expansion of the apse area until the area of the cemetery behind it. Simultaneously, two side aisles were widened with the realization of the existing chapels flanking the main altar. The extension works were financed by the family of Agapito Grillo and designed by Gasparo Court. The Chapel of the Crucifix has a marble facing of 1587, the work of Taddeo Carlone.

Only fifty years after this work, shortly before the middle of the '600, Cardinal Stefano Durazzo, a pastoral visit, he observed a degradation of the complex providing new jobs.

A document from 1642 shows how these works, in particular concerning the opening of three semicircular windows, rebuilding the interior columns and capitals, were entrusted to the sculptor and architect Daniele Casella Giovanni Battista Bianco. It was in that circumstance that was totally renovated by the guilds and noble families chapels and side altars, enriched with paintings and sculptures (many times only to be painted in later eighteenth century).

Numerous alterations have made the basilica of Santa Maria delle Vigne a building is completely different from the original Romanesque style, which remained in effect, in addition to the bell tower, the only plant-type basilica and a column that, according to tradition, would belong to the original Roman columns and on which there is a painting representing the Madonna.

The replacement vessel in the central system to eight columns of Romanesque temple with four double columns of greater height and thus diminishing the intercolumns from nine to five, has completely broken the Roman sense of spatiality. The opening of windows has determined then a different distribution of light sources by taking on the structure of one big classroom where the lateral and central areas are almost devoid of Dividend

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