Churches of Gualdo Tadino

For three months of my life, I lived 7½ km from downtown Gualdo, but you'd never know it; I've spent a total of maybe five hours in the town, spread over two visits years apart — and the first time was a loose cakewalk thru a place that was shuttered for Sunday and All Souls' Day, with, to boot, much of it boarded up for repairs a year after a serious earthquake. As a result, there's not as much on this page as there ought to be, and there won't be much more until I go back.

With one exception, even the churches you see here were closed; and among the churches I haven't yet seen are S. Francesco, which except for the view that heads off this page, was surrounded by scaffolding — a pity, since it contains Roman remains. In the surrounding territory of the township, also unseen yet, S. Giovanni Battista in Grello and the parish church of Caprara, both with frescoes by the celebrated local painter Matteo da Gualdo; the 11c church of S. Facondino; and the Romanesque church of Pieve di Compresseto. I'm due for another trip, I think.

As an indication of just how much I haven't seen, in 1933 Ruggero Guerrieri, a local Gualdo historian, published his Storia Civile ed Ecclesiastica del Comune di Gualdo Tadino: the index lists 26 churches, chapels and oratories in town, three outside the walls, four "nearby", a few others not clearly localized — and 81 more in various villages of the comune. Maybe half of them no longer exist, mind you, but that still leaves lots of exploration.