[image ALT: Much of my site will be useless to you if you've got the images turned off!]
mail: Bill Thayer [image ALT: Cliccare qui per una pagina di aiuto in Italiano.]
Italiano 		[Link to a series of help pages]
Help 		[Link to the next level up]
Up 		[Link to my homepage]
Home

S. Croce di Apecchio: the Interior

[image ALT: A small flat closet-like box, maybe 25 cm tall and 20 cm wide, surmounted by a wooden cross of the same size again. It is the tabernacle on the main altar of the little church of S. Croce in Apecchio, Marche (central Italy).]

On a blustery day in early April of 2004, I stood in this church for all of two or three minutes maybe: it's not very big, I saw no remarkable works of art, and I'm as much at a loss for information now on S. Croce as I was then; but why I didn't take a general view of the interior, I have no idea.

The tabernacle on the main altar that you see here, though, gives you a good feeling for the room. It's small, and simple, and made of wood, and sits on a molding not of marble, but of faux-marbre: wood again, painted to look like the more expensive material — a subterfuge now so common in Italian churches that there's really no pretense to it any more.

[image ALT: A carved stone angel. It is a detail of a baptismal font in the church of S. Croce in Apecchio, Marche (central Italy).]
Close-up of the medieval baptismal font.

The font is equally simple — see also this fuller view (notice the bell-pull to the belfry above) — but there's a bit more to it. The carving is a bit rough, yet the design is elegant. The Adoration of the Cross is a Byzantine theme: in the early Middle Ages, Apecchio was part of the so‑called "Byzantine corridor", a narrow strip of land connecting Ravenna to Rome; if it's a bit odd to see the motif on a baptismal font, a very appropriate connection can be made with the passage in the New Testament in which Jesus eventually heals a man at the Pool of Bethesda —

And an angel of the Lord descended at certain times into the pond; and the water was moved. And he that went down first into the pond after the motion of the water, was made whole, of whatsoever infirmity he lay under.

(John 5:4, Douay-Rheims version)

If I were pressed, I'd date the carving to the 13c.

Images with borders lead to more information. The thicker the border, the more information. (Details here.)

CHURCHES: [Onsite link]
Churches of
Marche 		[Onsite link]
Churches
of Italy
UP TO: [Onsite link]
S. Croce 		[Onsite link]
Apecchio 		[Onsite link]
Pesaro province 		[Link to the Marche homepage]
Marche 		[Link to the Italy homepage]
Italy 		[Link to my homepage]
Home

A page or image on this site is in the public domain only if its URL has a total of one *asterisk.
If the URL has two **asterisks, the item is copyright someone else, and used by permission or fair use.
If the URL has none the item is © Bill Thayer. See my copyright page for details and contact information.

[image ALT: Valid HTML 4.01.]

Page updated: 4 May 05