![\"Chiesa\"](\"https:\/\/teatropovero.it\/_mamawp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Chiesa1-400x600.jpg\")
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The Provost Church, originally dedicated to Saint Leonard of Limoges, is sited at the highest point of the inhabited area on sharply sloping land.\u00a0 It was built in the second half of the thirteenth century, at a time when the Commune of Monticchiello was expanding (well over 1,000 inhabitants, as opposed to today\u2019s 300).\u00a0 Its architecture represents a transition between Romanesque and Gothic.<\/p>\n
The plan of the church is T-shaped, facing ![\"san__cristoforo\"](\"https:\/\/teatropovero.it\/_mamawp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/san__cristoforo.jpg\")
almost exactly east, with a rectangular apse flanked by two similarly-shaped chapels.\u00a0 This is a typical design of Burgundy-style Romanesque-Gothic as introduced into Italy by the Cistercian order of monks.<\/p>\n
The well-preserved exterior of the building presents high walls carefully constructed of squared-off blocks of local sandstone, with very little decoration.\u00a0 Along the sides of the nave there are six tall round-topped windows, of which only two are open.<\/p>\n
The transept is pierced with seven windows, similar to those on the nave but smaller, apart from the large window on the choir which has a pointed arch.\u00a0 At the left-hand corner of the transept a subsidiary door was created with a semi-circular arch; but this was filled in quite soon after it was opened, no doubt to maintain the wall\u2019s stability.\u00a0 Another narrower door on the same side is open and in use.<\/p>\n
The most decorated part of the church is its fa\u00e7ade.\u00a0 The main door is surrounded by pilasters and slim columns, which above their capitals curve into a low arch, above which there is an acute-angled cusp.\u00a0 Further up, separated off by a horizontal frame carved with two rows of leaves, there is a magnificent rose window subdivided by small trilobated columns.![\"internochiesa\"](\"https:\/\/teatropovero.it\/_mamawp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/internochiesa.jpg\")
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The interior of the church feels quite different, having been re-structured in the eighteenth century.\u00a0 The walls were whitewashed, covering over numerous fresco paintings of the fourteenth-century Sienese school; and some windows were blocked to make space for some unimpressive stucco altars.\u00a0 The interior space was divided by composite columns supporting slim vaults of quartz, which altered the spatial proportions and hid the original carved roof beams.\u00a0 This masterpiece of bad taste was carried out in the second half of the eighteenth century, and finished off in 1797 with the building of an enormous alabaster altar.<\/p>\n
The artistic importance of this church led to its restoration in 1933 by the Superintendency for Tuscan Monuments, which stripped it of some of its Baroque additions.<\/p>\n
Although this restoration was incomplete, it gave a new character to the interior.\u00a0 Five Baroque altars were demolished, ![\"crociato\"](\"https:\/\/teatropovero.it\/_mamawp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/crociato.jpg\")
and three sandstone altars were re-established against the internal wall.\u00a0 The whitewash was chipped away, revealing some wonderful frescoes, some of them complete and others only fragmentary.\u00a0 Five windows were re-opened, the sacristy area and the two side chapels were restored.\u00a0 However, insufficient funds meant that the restoration was unfnished: the vaults which rest on the ten huge columns still block the four windows in the nave.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Provost Church, originally dedicated to Saint Leonard of Limoges, is sited at the highest point of the inhabited area on sharply sloping land.\u00a0 It was built in the second half of the thirteenth century, at a time when the Commune of Monticchiello was expanding (well over 1,000 inhabitants, as opposed to today\u2019s 300).\u00a0 Its …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2945,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-960","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n