This is the most important and best-preserved architectural testimony from the Lombard period and is particularly significant because it marks the coexistence of distinctly Lombard motifs (in the Friezes, for example) and a revival of classical models, creating a sort of uninterrupted courtly continuity between classical art, Lombard art, Carolingian art (in whose workshops Lombard craftsmen often worked, as in Brescia), and Ottonian art. The complex is part of the serial site “Lombards in Italy: The Places of Power,” which includes seven locations dense with architectural, pictorial, and sculptural evidence of Lombard art, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in June 2011.
It was built around the mid-8th century on the site where the gastaldia (or gastaldaga, or gastalderia), the palace of the gastald (the city lord), once stood; it was therefore a palatine chapel. The initiative is probably attributed to Astolfo, Duke of Friuli from 744 to 749 and King of the Lombards from 749 to 756, and his wife Giseltrude.
When the gastaldia was transformed into a monastery, the small temple assumed the new Marian name.
It consists of a square-based hall with a spacious groin vault, ending in a lower presbytery divided by pairs of columns into a three-bay loggia with parallel barrel vaults. The west side was the original entrance wall, and on this side substantial remains of extraordinary stucco and fresco decoration survive. The apse was originally decorated with mosaics, but today no trace remains.
The lunette above the door is framed with intertwined grapevines with clusters. At the center is depicted Christ between the Archangels Michael and Gabriel, while on the same register there is a frescoed band with Martyrs.
The most interesting part is nevertheless the Frieze on the upper level, freely superimposed on the architectural elements of the building such as the windows. Here are six high-relief figures of Saints, in stucco, exceptionally well preserved: their monumental figures are linked to classical models, reinterpreted according to Lombard culture. The drapery of the richly decorated garments has a distinctly straight-lined pattern reminiscent of Byzantine models, from which the Saints differ for the greater sense of volume and for the verticality, further emphasized by the length of the folds of the tunics.
Information about Oratory of Santa Maria in Valle
Piazzetta San Biagio,
33043 Cividale del Friuli (Udine)
0432700867
turismo@cividale.net
https://www.comune.cividale-del-friuli.ud.it
Source: MIBACT
