IInside of the Church from the Pulpit

       Church and Convent of San Biagio. The Monastero of San Biagio, erected probably by Aloara (already remembered in a document of 1043), of benedictine order has nothing more of the ancient order if we exclude the structural plant of the church to one only nave and narrow a transept absorbed in following one and, particularly, its pronaos (XI century). The tradition wants the Convent was built to confine, or defend from the raids, the Norman women when their men left from the town.
            The
Codice di San Biagio brings again donations to the convent of pontiffs, princes and private men, starting from 1050. Its long life is marked by many events that have transformed, almost totality, the original order; the last of these, of the second world war, caused the collapses northern arm of the convent and of the balcony high bell tower. Of the vast original convent only a small part of it currently is used.
            At the exterior of the church emerge fine
portals of the pronaos (XVIII century.) of type borrominiano with the reliefs of San Benedetto and San Mauro emerge. The Pronaos, of six cross bays, enters the bountiful inland full of notable and interesting works.
            It is to remember, besides, that in the inside ceiling therewere paintings by Malinconico and Caracciolo, destroyed on August 20th 1943.
            The church, with a nave only, among the big windows displays, eighteen vaulted cloths, with stories of San Beneditto, Pietro Martino (1701), while in the opposite façadethere are five fine paintings of the giordanian Giovan Battista Lama:
San Filippo baptizes an eunuch, Santa Caterina di Alessandria, San Benedetto da Norcia and Santa Scolastica, Santa Dorotea and Sant'Ambrogio and Teodosio.
            In the first chapel, we find an
Adorazion of the Magi (XVI cent.), by Fabrizio Santafede; in the second, an interesting caravaggescan cloth, the Liberazione of San Pietro; in the third, the Adorazione dei Pastori by Andrea Starace (1767). Inthe following one, a ligneous Crocifisso (fine XVII sec.) (end XVII cent.). The ligneus organ of the seventeenth century follows and, in the sixth chapel the notable Assunzione di Maria by Andrea Vaccaro. In the presbytery, on the altar, the extraordinary table of the Martirio of San Biagio of 1588 by Leonardo Castellano, or by Giovan Battista Graziano, from Aversa, surmounted by a ligneous gilded canopy. The altar contains marble children attributed to Paolo Persico. On the left side, on the altar, an interesting San Benedetto with the crow, on the bottom the abbey of Montecassino (end '500) by Giovan Vincenzo Forli; in the following, San Mauro blesses the cripples, Giovan Battista Lama.


High altar with cona and Martyrdom of S. Biagio (end '500)by G. B. Graziano

            In the fourth chapel, entirely decorated with marble, there is the ligneous statue of San Biagio and, on one side, frescos with stories of the Saint; in the following, a Deposition of the deceased Christ, in Flemish ways (end '500). In the following, the Madonna del Rosario (1623); in the Ia chapel, the Pentecoste (end '500), attributed to Marco Pino from Siena (or, maybe, of Giovan Battista Graziano). In the deposits of the convent till few years ago we could admire the Carrozza di Città (XVIII cent.) decorated in the eight perimetric panels with rural scenes with characters.


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Artistic-monumental patrimony