Church of Saints Faustinus and Jovita

About

The church of Saints Faustinus and Jovita, also known as the church of San Faustino Maggiore, is a church in Brescia, located on the street of the same name, Via San Faustino, along the last stretch to the north. It is the patron church of the city of Brescia and, for this reason, it is the most important religious building in the city after the cathedrals, the Old Cathedral and the New Cathedral. The church, linked to the adjoining monastery founded in the 9th century by Bishop Ramperto, has its origins in a building possibly dating back to the 8th century, which has seen numerous extensions and reconstructions over the centuries, particularly the 17th-century intervention, which involved a radical renovation of the structure and decorations. The church preserves extensive Baroque frescoes, particularly the one in the nave by Tommaso Sandrino and the one in the chancel, the Apotheosis of Saints Faustinus, Jovita, Benedict and Scholastica by Giandomenico Tiepolo. Notable works of pictorial art are also the Nativity of Jesus by Lattanzio Gambara, the Deposition of Christ by Sante Cattaneo, and the standard of the Blessed Sacrament painted by Romanino. Other works of art include the sepulchral...

The church of Santa Maria in Silva, the primitive core of the sanctuary, was probably built in the 8th century on the same site occupied by the present building, near the Garza stream, in the populous north-central district of the walled city. On May 9, 806, the transfer of the relics of Saints Faustinus and Jovita from the basilica of San Faustinus ad Sanguinem (since 1956 renamed to the church of Sant'Angela Merici ) to Santa Maria in Silva took place, thus assuming considerable importance within the city's religious scene. Among other things, at a moment when the procession stopped near Porta Bruciata (the west end of Via Musei, at the corner of Piazza della Loggia ) the remains are said to have exuded blood: Duke Naimon of Bavaria, who was present at the moment of the miracle, is said to have converted to Catholicism and thus donated to the city the relic of the True Cross, which has been kept in the Old Cathedral ever since as the main piece of the treasure of the Holy Crosses. The church of San Faustino in Riposo would also be built on the site of the miracle. However, the reasons that led to this transfer, which certainly had a strong impact in the city, are not known.

Ramperto and the foundation of the monastery

By mid-century, however, the physical condition of the church seemed to be verging on the worst: the place was no longer diligently officiated at and the worship of the remains of the two martyrs neglected. Ramperto, elected bishop in 815 and a great promoter of the cult of the patron saints, underwrote donations in 841 in favor of an establishing " cenobium monachorum " near the little church, probably boosting an already existing religious community. Most likely, Ramperto did not limit himself only to this, but planned a real operational program: to enforce and better administer the bequests of the faithful, to lead to better preservation of relics, and to have from the exemplary behavior, which would be imposed on the newly established monastery, stimulus for the population to do good. Consequently, it is also likely that Ramperto provided for an initial reconstruction of the church and bell tower. In 843 it was again Ramperto who intervened in the church, where he replaced the sepulchral ark of the saints with a marble one, within which a lead tablet bearing the dedicatory inscription was left. Ramperto's work, in essence, proved essential: by founding a monastery hinged around the cult of the relics of the two martyrs, he laid a solid foundation for the subsequent growth of the monastic community.

The monastery, now established, seemed to spend almost three hundred years undisturbed until the first half of the 12th century. First signs of uncertainty emerge precisely in documents from these years, when in 1123 and 1133 the abbots request first from Pope Callixtus II and then from Pope Innocent II confirmation of property and privileges for their monastery. The requests would turn out to be necessitated by a situation of instability caused by political and social upheavals, derived mainly from the preaching of Arnold of Brescia against the power of the clergy. During this period, the church was rebuilt or reconstructed, probably enlarged: the consecration took place in 1142. At present, the church is a large building of Romanesque lines, with three naves. There is also a large crypt under the chancel enriched by several altars, including one dedicated to the titular saints and that of St. Honorius. The room, which was slightly underground, considerably elevated the presbytery above, so much so that a flight of steps was necessary to reach it.

The monastery and its finances, meanwhile, entered a slow but steady descent. By 1314, its situation was disastrous: the properties, though vast, were poorly managed and, after decades of neglect and mismanagement, were now in the hands of rapacious tenants, providing little or no income. The situation eventually came to a head: in 1341, the management of the monastery was given in commendation to external abbots.

The situation remained unchanged for at least a century. The only factor that should have kept the population's interest in the fortunes of the monastery was, as far as it appears from the documents that have come down to us, the great loyalty to the patron saints, to whom the church was named. In 1422, it was the city municipality that asked the Holy See to place the monastery under the control of the Friars Minor, due to the misconduct of the commendatory abbots, who often turned into mere speculators. However, the proposal was not followed up. There are also several donations and testamentary bequests recorded between the second half of the 14th century and the beginning of the 15th century. The community seemed to spend the first two tumultuous decades of the fifteenth century unscathed, when Brescia passed from the hands of the Visconti to those of Pandolfo III Malatesta, and a few years later to the domains of the Republic of Venice.

In 1437, hostilities between Venice and Milan resumed and directly involved the city: the Visconti attempted a first reconquest of Brescia in 1438 and sent their troops, led by Niccolò Piccinino, to the siege. According to the chronicles of the time, the besiegers, who had been stationed outside the city for several months by then, were about to gain the upper hand when, on December 13, during an extended attack on the Roverotto terraces, on the city's eastern curtain wall, the shining figures of the two saints appeared on top of the walls, putting Piccinino's army to flight and saving Brescia from conquest. The miracle, whether real or presumed, ended up radically changing the city's devotion, focusing it on the figure of the two martyr saints. A veritable wave of bequests and donations invested the church and the monastery, which entered a chapter of newfound prosperity.

In 1444 the administration of the monastery passed under the control of Abbot Bernardo Marcello who, inspired by the new, very strong devotion of the citizens, maintained a lively administrative conduct and promoted important restoration works inside the crypt. Fate was favorable to him and, to the already fervent devotion due to the miracle of 1438, another event shook the citizens' attention to the monastery: on December 11, 1455, the sepulchral ark of the two saints made by Ramperto in his time was found behind the crypt's high altar. The tomb was opened during a solemn ceremony and the remains of the two patron saints were found and recognized inside. The inscription left by Ramperto was also found in its place. The young Tonino from Lumezzane took on the task of renovating the seat of the ark, which was placed in place of the crypt's high altar on top of six marble columns.

Annexation to the Congregation of St. Justina

The monastery, now of solidly established importance, still found itself under commendation, with no fixed community to run it. The situation, by now intolerable and also impractical after the recent events that had diverted the faith of the population to the church, finally found a definitive solution on March 24, 1490 when, by a bull of Pope Innocent VIII, the monastery was united to the Congregation of St. Justina of Padua. This was the end of a long period of decline: a month later, the friars of the Benedictine Order took full possession of the facilities, immediately launching a major campaign of rehabilitation and modernization, with numerous interventions to achieve a better use of the complex. A document of 1501 mentions, referring to the construction of a new cloister, " de fundamentis cenobii San Faustini Maioris Brixiae," suggesting that the "foundations of the monastery" mentioned were not only those of the cloister, but the start of a more extensive project, a true total renovation of the monastery, which in fact would take place in the following decades.

However, the grand project almost immediately suffered a major setback, caused by the tragic events of the reconquest of Brescia by Milan at the hands of the French, which would end with the bloody sacking of 1512. The building revival of the monastery, most likely, was not to take place in the years immediately following, as Venice regained possession of the city once again: from 1520 onward, however, the works experienced intense activity. In 1532 the organ by Gian Giacomo Antegnati was installed, while the structures of the monastery, especially the cloisters and the new dormitory, were substantially completed. However, in the second half of the century, Lattanzio Gambara frescoed the entire presbytery area: his work would be admired a few years later, in 1566, by Giorgio Vasari, who was visiting Brescia. Meanwhile, master builder Geronimo Tobanello, who was already working in other areas of the monastery, took care of the first adaptations of Renaissance architecture inside the church, affixing on the walls of the aisles, around the chapels, a rhythmic succession of marble lesenes, all designed by Giovanni Maria Piantavigna. The first chapel on the right was also renovated, building a new altar reusing parts of the old one and dedicating it to St. Michael the Archangel. The work was taken over during the visit of St. Charles Borromeo in October 1580, who took note of both the embellishment lesenes and the new chapel and ordered that the north wall of the church, which had remained intact up to that time, be broken through to create three new mirrored chapels.

The seventeenth century thus began in the midst of this fervid activity of reconstruction. The first reconstructions planned by Piantavigna, the expansion orders of St. Charles Borromeo, and the new structures of the monastery now successfully completed must have instilled in the monks of St. Faustinus the inspiration for a true, radical renovation of the interior of the church as well. The latter must have had, at least for the time, an unpleasant appearance: the wall structures were still those of the 14th century, and the naves were covered with exposed truss roofs. The chancel area had already been renovated a few decades earlier, while the church walls had recently been overlaid with new decorative lesenes. The first chapel on the right had just been modernized, and the north wall was to be completely demolished for the construction of three new chapels. The crypt, on the other hand, probably retained its Romanesque appearance with, superimposed, restorations made at the end of the 15th century. Due to the presence of the latter, moreover, the floor of the presbytery could only be reached by a flight of steps, making connections with the hall difficult, in the period of the Counter-Reformation.

Reconstruction work began from the chancel, which in 1604 was lowered through the destruction of the crypt, relocating the relics kept there. Those of the two patron saints were still in the marble ark of Ramperto, enriched by the small columns added more than a century earlier: the whole was, for the time being, simply reassembled in the new presbytery. Likewise, the relics and altar of St. Honorius were moved and reassembled in the back chapel of the right aisle. The final impetus for the continuation of the renovations came unexpectedly from the Municipality of Brescia, which on November 14, 1609 resolved to build, using public money, a new sepulchral ark of the two saints, in the opinion of the councilors by then unsuitable and worthy of greater attention to keep up popular devotion. The contract with sculptor Giovanni Antonio Carra was signed in 1618, finally paving the way for the radical reconstruction of the church.

Antonio Comino's design for the reconstruction of the interior of the church included an innovative solution in the Brescia field: the use of the Venetian window as a structural element. This architectural device, already tested and introduced in the Po Valley area by Giulio Romano in the first half of the previous century, had not yet found practical applications in Brescia, except in decorative details and facades. The solution was not a foregone conclusion, since it solved the arduous problem of having wide, unobstructed views inside church buildings while maintaining the three-aisle system, without necessarily having to resort to the single hall. It should be noted, moreover, that Comino was engaged at the same time at the construction site of the new cathedral, which had recently come under the control of Lorenzo Binago, who in turn was familiar with the Venetian window having applied it a few years earlier in the church of Sant'Alessandro in Zebedia in Milan. Binago, therefore, may also have been no stranger to the solution of the use of the Venetian window in San Faustino.

The task of designing and making effective the complete reconstruction of the interior was entrusted to Antonio Comino with a contract signed on September 26, 1620. However, there are some preliminaries, still not fully clarified by historiographical research. Certainly, the economic basis to support the project was provided by the donation of Abbot Faustino Gioia, then head of the monastery, who, on June 16 of the same year, had signed the assignment of all the proceeds of his merchant family to the building site of the new church. Conversely, it is not known from which figure, internal or external to the monastery, pursued the idea of initiating the renovation: a role on the part of Carra himself cannot be ruled out, who, having to build the new sepulchral ark of the saints, probably wondered whether the monument would have found a worthy home in a Romanesque-Gothic church with Renaissance decorations. In fact, there may not even have been a single figure, but rather a common will later concretized by Abbot Gioia, Antonio Comino, and Carra. In any case, clearance operations began in the following weeks: in particular, the relics kept in the altar of Saint Antigio, the decorations of the altar of the Blessed Sacrament, and all the canvases were removed. The altar of St. Honorius, which had been reassembled a few years before, was also dismantled. The foundation stone of the new church was finally laid on March 9, 1621.

However, as early as March 20, work was suspended. A heated debate arose, involving various figures inside and outside the monastery: a great deal of confusion emerges from the documents, with numerous stances and different versions of the affair. Attempting to reconstruct the facts, the construction site was interrupted basically for two reasons: to ascertain the availability of funding from Abbot Gioia and to verify, before advancing too far with the work, the static validity of the project, as there were doubts about the correctness of Comino's design regarding the size of the serlian columns, which seemed too low. In this regard, the local workers were hesitant on the subject of the Venetian window: it was practically the first time they were faced with such a structural solution. The problem was solved a few weeks later by placing a small pedestal under the columns that raised the entire system about a meter.

In 1622 the rib vaults of the aisles were put in place, and as soon as they were finished, the great vault of the nave was built. Everything seems to be finished in early 1623. In the same year the new sepulchral ark sculpted by Giovanni Antonio Carra was also installed, finding its place in the center of the chancel. A few months later, the bodies of the two saints were finally moved there during a solemn ceremony. Decorations then began to be discussed: on September 5, 1625 a contract was signed with the painters Antonio Gandino and his son Bernardino, who two months later began the drafting of the work in the large panel in the nave. Similarly, in 1626 the painter Tommaso Sandrino began frescoing the rest of the covers starting with the last vault of the right aisle: all work was finished by 1629. In 1630 the tragic " Manzonian plague " occurred, which considerably slowed down the works for at least a decade. Documents mention building works inside the church again only in 1639, when the new ornamentation for the altar of the Blessed Sacrament was commissioned, designed by Agostino Avanzo and made by Giovanni Antonio Carra's sons: Giovanni and Carlo. The affair dragged on quite a bit and the altar could only be finished at the end of the century. In 1643, work began on the rebuilding of the chapel of St. Honorius, at the head of the right aisle, supported financially by the powerful Calini family, which had acquired the sepulchral area in front of it with the commitment to renovate the chapel's furnishings and architecture. Antonio Comino again took care of the matter, but it was to be his last work: the architect died the following year. On the other hand, the construction of the altar of St. Benedict, the third on the left, by Giovanni Carra began in 1649. At the end of the century, the altar of the Nativity was also put in place at the hands of Santo Calegari the Elder: when the work was completed, the canvas by Lattanzio Gambara, made almost a century and a half earlier, was mounted inside it.

The 18th century: the new facade and the fire of 1743

Having finished the interior of the church with great success, all that remained was the exterior: the facade, most likely, was still the original Romanesque-Gothic one. The construction of a new, worthy shell for the newly rebuilt interior was subsidized by a substantial testamentary bequest from the nobleman Orazio Fenaroli. The project and construction site were entrusted to Giuseppe Cantone, a well-known local sculptor and stone mason, who had already worked on the interior of the church for the altar of the Blessed Sacrament. Work on the facade began on December 22, 1699, when the first stones of Botticino marble were used to set the base. Between 1701 and 1704 everything else turns out to be placed, including the high relief of the portal carved by Santo Calegari the Elder. However, final completion did not occur until 1711, the date engraved on the upper pediment.