The Invisible Dragon

It's tough work being a tourist, at least a good one. Why go somewhere to "see things" if I don't keep my eyes open? Now it's easy to see when we have someone to point the sights out to us, or that next best thing, a good guidebook. But what happens when we don't? Here's what happened to me, in a fifteen-minute visit of this small church:

St. Anthony of Padua, I think; the vignettes in the upper corners, probably of miracles, would clear up the saint's identity, as would the text on the pages of the open book.

A 17c pope, or a 17c painting of an earlier pope, or a copy of one. Generic in every way, although the keys are right: one silver, the temporal power; the other gold, the spiritual power.

Last Supper, an oil painting: no earlier than the late 16c; I suspect in fact it's a work of the 19c. The most interesting items to me are those where the artist made no pretense of mirroring historical reality, and therefore really did mirror his own time: the forks and knives, the embroidery on the band of the tablecloth, still seen today in Umbrian linen shops.

But the one work of art to see in the church, I missed: a fresco of St. Sylvester, to whom at one time the Fornolesi gave special devotion because he is said to have chased away a dragon in the area.

And then — give myself an out here — that fresco may not be there. Although I've seen several sources mention it, none describes it and I've never seen a picture of it, either. Maybe the dragon is depicted, maybe not. But if the dragon is gone, why would the saint stay?

For more general interior and exterior views of the church, see the Fornole homepage (in the navigation bar below).