Sant'Eufemia

About

The church of Sant'Eufemia is a Catholic place of worship located in the heart of Verona's historic center. It straddles an ancient Roman cardo, where a church building probably already existed in the 6th century. The foundation of the present church is owed to the Della Scala family, who brought Augustinian hermit monks to Verona in 1262 so that they could be closer to the community and granted them permission to build a monastery, located at the time in the Capitani quarter of the Scaliger city. Through bequests and donations, particularly that of Alberto della Scala, the building could be consecrated in 1331 by the bishop of Verona Nicolò. The building activity, however, did not end, and in the following years the monastery's rooms continued to be expanded in order to accommodate the increasing number of monks who arrived there attracted by the great prestige the community boasted. A permit granted by Mastino II della Scala in 1340 made it possible to further enlarge the church by building the vast apse that still distinguishes it today. From the end of the fourteenth century work continued on the various chapels and minor altars. During the 18th century the building underwent several...

The first Christian church was built on this site before the mid-10th century, as it appears in the so-called “Raterian iconography,” the oldest depiction of Verona and dating from that period. Although no archaeological excavations have been conducted, it is believed that the church may date back to at least the 6th century and spanned a single block of the ancient Roman urban fabric. In 1117 Verona was hit by a devastating earthquake that destroyed or severely damaged its churches, not sparing St. Euphemia. The feverish reconstructive activity following the earthquake also affected this church, which was so promptly rebuilt that as early as 1140 it was reconsecrated as a parish. Sources or analyses do not reveal anything about this second building either, but it can be imagined to have been also modest in size and built in the Veronese Romanesque style, with the interior space divided into three naves, similar to the other religious buildings that were built in the Verona area at that time.

In late medieval Verona, Sant'Eufemia stood in the Capitani district and the contrada of the same name, which in the mid-13th century had about 500 souls. In the same years, just outside Verona there was already a community of Augustinian hermits who had arrived in the Ratherian period (late 10th century) and were offered to move to Sant'Eufemia (which had meanwhile fallen into such crisis that it was ruled by a single cleric named Zeno) in order to carry out their work of evangelization.

This was also made possible by the Della Scala family 's seizure of power in Verona, which promoted a policy favorable to the church, encouraging the entry of various religious orders into the city. Thus, on September 16, 1262, it was possible, after a complex ceremony attended by clerics, the people and notaries, to formalize the full takeover of the monks, led by prior Friar Norandino, in place of the cleric Zeno. The first community that settled there, consisting of sixteen friars, found a complex situation: the church was in a poor state and the convent building was unsuitable for their living and office needs. However, from early on the Augustinians were able to benefit from aid from the ecclesiastical authorities, which resulted in donations, privileges and the power to confer indulgences. In addition, the church became a stationary church for Holy Week. On November 8, 1265, Bishop Manfredo of Verona gave permission to lay the foundation stone of the new building, which later, albeit with later modifications, would be the one that still exists today; at the same time, the bishop granted indulgences to anyone who contributed financially to the building.

The start of construction was not immediate since in the following years the Augustinians had to obtain, through purchases and donations, the land on which the buildings destined for their cenobitic life, such as refectory, parlor and chapter house, would later be erected. Thus it had to wait ten years for the papal legate and bishop of Ferrara, Guglielmo, to give, on July 11, 1275, the second permit to begin construction. The foundation stone was laid the following August 7 in the presence of several witnesses and the imperial notary Bonzaninus filius quondam Ventai. The work had to proceed expeditiously and already in 1279 the facade must have been well underway since in the same year in his will the nobleman Cavalcano de' Cavalcani indicated with the words “... eligo sepulturam corporis mei positam in arca Ecclesie Sancte Euphemie penes portam magnam extra murum ” that his mortal remains were to be kept in the ark placed on the facade itself. On March 3, 1284, the bishop of Verona Bartolomeo I della Scala blessed the cemetery that arose in front of the church, while on January 9, 1279, the altar dedicated to St. Ursula was consecrated.

At that time the Augustinians had to boast a high regard among the inhabitants of the city, from whom they received donations, privileges and aid, but it was the Della Scala family who were their greatest benefactors with Alberto leaving, in 1301, the considerable sum of 1,000 lire to each mendicant order present in the city so that, at least the Augustinians and Dominicans, could use them “... ad faciedum fieri Ecclesiam ipsorum fratrum solummodo expendedas..., ” that is, for the buildings of their respective churches. In 1325, with a papal bull issued by Pope John XII, a number of Veronese citizens were excommunicated who were found guilty of offending the Augustinians, further proof of the prestige of the convent and the protection it was afforded by the ecclesiastical authority. Work proceeded for a few more years, and the church was finally consecrated in 1331 by Bishop Nicolò, abbot of the Villanova abbey.

In the following years the rooms of the monastery dedicated to accommodation and studium had to be expanded, as the number of monks steadily increased, also due to the arrival of clerics from foreign countries. The cloister was renovated and its walls decorated with frescoes. It is not certain but it is believed that Dante Alighieri stayed in the monastery on January 20, 1320 on the occasion of his return to the city for an oral exposition of his work Quaestio de aqua et terra. In those years there were many Veronese citizens of various social backgrounds who asked to be buried in the church of Sant'Eufemia, where the bodies of the sons of Guido da Polenta also found rest.

A new permission, granted by Mastino II della Scala on July 19, 1340, allowed the Augustinian monks to close off a street that cut their property in two, so that they could unite it and thus complete the construction of the building that still lacked an apse. Cangrande II, who was assassinated by his brother on December 14, 1359, left a bequest to the Augustinians of 1,000 lire, the same amount that Diamante Dal Verme (wife of Giacomo Dal Verme) left in 1361 for the construction of the main chapel (later completed thanks to Jacopo Dal Verme ), to which he added 60 for the altar frontal and 25 for the poor of the contrada assisted by the monks.

Towards the end of the 14th century, the construction of the various minor chapels continued. On September 24, 1390, a contract between Taddeo Spolverini Dal Verme and the monastery allowed the former to build the family chapel, later consecrated in 1396; Nicolò da Ferrara, who was later the executor, also participated in the signing as a witness. It is probable that between the end of the 14th century and the beginning of the following century the bell tower had already been completed, at least in part. In the following years the interior of the church was decorated and enriched while, in 1476, the jurist Cristoforo Lanfranchini commissioned a new portal in late Gothic style to replace the previous one considered very modest in relation to the new church.

Throughout the 16th century the church underwent intense embellishment of its interior in accordance with late Renaissance trends. In the first decades of the century, the sacristy was restored and the high altar was decorated, which was embellished with three bronze panels by the Trentino sculptor Andrea Briosco, known as Il Riccio, no longer present in the church (in their place there are imitations today) because they were subject to Napoleonic confiscations. A great many artists of the Veronese school of painting made their contributions in the creation of canvases and altarpieces displayed inside, among them were Giovan Francesco Caroto, Francesco Torbido, Il Moretto, Dionisio Battaglia, Battista del Moro, Paolo Farinati, Jacopo Ligozzi, Bernardino India, and Domenico and Felice Brusasorzi.

On February 26, 1601, Bishop Agostino Valier allowed the Augustinians to place a baptismal font inside the church, an uncommon privilege made possible thanks to the donation of Count Galeazzo Banda. In addition, it was arranged that not only residents of the old parish jurisdiction would be baptized but anyone who requested it.

The following year, in accordance with the Counter-Reformation directions following the Council of Trent, the interior was remodeled, and in particular the old rood screen separating the nave from the chancel was removed, as it was no longer suitable for the new arrangements. Later a new cloister was also built, replacing the one built in the 14th century. In 1617 it was already under construction according to a plan that intended it to be of imposing dimensions, so much so that the friars wrote that “a cloister of such size and beautiful architecture that will have few equals in Italy” was being built.

In these years the monastery could boast the presence of as many as 50 friars supported by an annual income of 1,000 ducats. The plague of 1630 also struck Verona, killing three-fifths of the population, and in the district of Santa Eufemia alone 438 people died out of the 656 who lived there before the outbreak of the epidemic. Having overcome the scourge of the plague, at the end of the 18th century the church was provided with a new high altar, later sold in 1836 to the Pinzolo parish church, made in 1694 by Giovanni Battista Ranghieri with sculptures by Domenico Aglio and paintings by Pietro Ronchi.

From the beginning of decadence to the present

The 18th century was also marked by intense works that changed the physiognomy of the church. The professed layman Friar Pellegrino Mosconi was commissioned in 1739 to take charge of these renovations, which involved the interior and exterior of the building. The most important intervention carried out on the interior involved the ceiling where a barrel vault was created so large that it covered the entire nave, and hid the ancient wooden trusses. On the right side the fourteenth-century windows were bricked in and replaced with simple rectangular openings. A large central single-lancet window was opened on the facade to allow greater illumination of the interior spaces, and at the same time the two pre-existing ones were closed. In the same years a stone statue depicting the Madonna was removed from the interior to be relocated to Dossobuono. Some sarcophagi and sepulchral slabs that were on the walls of the naves were moved outside to the first cloister, while the Lavagnoli and Cavalcanti sepulchres were walled up on the facade.

The first half of the eighteenth century is not only remembered in the history of the church for these transformations but also for being the period of the beginning of the decline of the monastery. The number of resident friars declined steadily, so that while in 1756 there could be counted 34, in 1780 there were only 22 until, fifteen years later, there were only 12. The arrival of Napoleon's troops was the final blow that disgraced the convent: in fact, the French imposed the closure of religious activities in order to turn the church into a military hospital, but not before emptying it of all its furnishings. Shortly afterwards a fire destroyed many of the artworks kept there, including canvases by Balestra, Ridolfi, Giolfino and Brusasorzi. During the Veronese Easter of 1797 the church was attacked by a group of rioters who looted and plundered it, despite attempts by the prior of the convent to dissuade them; the action ended in bloodshed with deaths and injuries. In 1798, following some renovations, it could be reopened for worship.

An overall reorganization of the diocese of Verona led Santa Eufemia, in 1806, to be elevated to a matrix church absorbing, as a result, other neighboring parishes; this increased the number of faithful from 570 to nearly 2,500. A subsequent decree imposed the suppression of all religious orders, and even the Augustinians had to leave the already reduced part of the convent they had been granted in 1806.

In the following years, while Verona was under Austrian domination, some changes were made to the interior of the church, such as the removal of two small altars that were on either side of the main entrance, the displacement of the altars of St. Augustine and the Pieta, and the replacement of the high altar (brought, as already mentioned, to Pinzolo). In 1845 the interior lighting was renewed with new lamps and candelabra. During the three Italian wars of independence (1848, 1859, 1866) it was closed to worship and used again as a military hospital.

During that period there were few changes to the structure of the church except for the construction of a large arch between the chancel and the nave, with the function of mitigating the perception of excessive length. Restoration and consolidation of the building's masonry was put in place in the 20th century. On April 25, 1945, the explosion of the nearby Victory Bridge, blown up by retreating German soldiers at the end of World War II, severely damaged the church's facade. In the same year it was promptly restored, opting, however, to replace the large central eighteenth-century single lancet window with a rose window that would give the building its original medieval appearance.

The first Christian church was built on this site before the mid-10th century, as it appears in the so-called “Raterian iconography,” the oldest depiction of Verona and dating from that period. Although no archaeological excavations have been conducted, it is believed that the church may date back to at least the 6th century and spanned a single block of the ancient Roman urban fabric. In 1117 Verona was hit by a devastating earthquake that destroyed or severely damaged its churches, not sparing St. Euphemia. The feverish reconstructive activity following the earthquake also affected this church, which was so promptly rebuilt that as early as 1140 it was reconsecrated as a parish. Sources or analyses do not reveal anything about this second building either, but it can be imagined to have been also modest in size and built in the Veronese Romanesque style, with the interior space divided into three naves, similar to the other religious buildings that were built in the Verona area at that time.