Basilica di Sant'Andrea
Encyclopedia
Vercelli
Vercelli is a city and comune of about 47,000 inhabitants in the Province of Vercelli, Piedmont, northern Italy. One of the oldest urban sites in northern Italy, it was founded, according to most historians, around the year 600 BC.The city is situated on the river Sesia in the plain of the river...
, Piedmont
Piedmont
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
, northern Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, founded in 1219 by Cardinal Guala Bicchieri
Guala Bicchieri
Guala Bicchieri was an Italian diplomat and papal official, and Cardinal. He was the papal legate in England from 1216 to 1218, and took a prominent role in the politics of England during King John’s last years and Henry III’s early minority....
and completed in 1227. It represents an early example of Gothic architecture in Italy, inspired by Cistercian models and featuring Romanesque
Romanesque architecture
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style,...
elements as well.
History
The basilica was built between 1219 and 1227 at the direction of Cardinal Guala Bicchieri, who had just returned from England where he had been papal legatePapal legate
A papal legate – from the Latin, authentic Roman title Legatus – is a personal representative of the pope to foreign nations, or to some part of the Catholic Church. He is empowered on matters of Catholic Faith and for the settlement of ecclesiastical matters....
. Bicchieri had received from King Henry III
Henry III of England
Henry III was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for 56 years from 1216 until his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready...
the perpetual rights to the income of Saint Andrew's Abbey in Chesterton, Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
. Thanks to this financial support, the cardinal was able to call to Vercelli some monks from Saint-Victor in Paris, giving them responsibility over the new abbey and the hospital to be built for the pilgrims who travelled the Via Francigena
Via Francigena
The Via Francigena is an ancient road between Rome and Canterbury, passing through England, France, Switzerland and Italy. In mediaeval times it was an important road and pilgrimage route...
. The hospital was begun in 1224. Although the architect is unknown, it is presumed that the Gothic lines of the new edifice were introduced by the French clerics, who included abbot Thomas Gallus
Thomas Gallus
Thomas Gallus of Vercelli was a French theologian, a member of the School of St Victor. He is known for his commentaries on Pseudo-Dionysius and his ideas on affective theology. His elaborate mystical schemata influenced Bonaventure and The Cloud of Unknowing...
, previously a professor in the University of Paris
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
. According to Italian art historian Giulio Carlo Argan
Giulio Carlo Argan
Giulio Carlo Argan was an Italian art historian and politician.-Biography:Argan was born in Turin and studied in the University of Turin, graduating in 1931. In 1928 he entered the National Fascist Party...
, the architect could have been Benedetto Antelami
Benedetto Antelami
Benedetto Antelami was an Italian architect and sculptor of the Romanesque school, whose "sculptural style sprang from local north Italian traditions that can be traced back to late antiquity" Little is known about his life. He was probably originally from Lombardy, perhaps born in Val d'Intelvi...
. The style of the Romanesque elements connects the building to the architectural traditions of northern Italy and suggest the hand of an Italian master in the design..
Thanks to Bicchieri's diplomacy, the abbey was able to increase its possessions through donations and privileges from pope Honorius III and emperor Frederick II
Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick II , was one of the most powerful Holy Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages and head of the House of Hohenstaufen. His political and cultural ambitions, based in Sicily and stretching through Italy to Germany, and even to Jerusalem, were enormous...
. Bicchieri died in Rome in 1227, the year in which the basilica was finished.
In the early 15th century a new bell tower was built, in a detached position, on the right side of the church. In the following century the cloister of the monastery was rebuilt, though the original small columns - in groups of four - were kept.
The complex was damaged during the Siege of Vercelli of 1617. During restorations carried out in 1818-1840, the scrinium (travelling case) of Guala Bicchieri was found in the building; it is now in the Civic Museum of Ancient Art in Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
. Other restorations took place in 1927 and 1955-1960.
Description
The basilica is built on the Latin cross plan, with a nave and two aisles of six bays each. The aisles are lower than the nave. The right aisle has buttressButtress
A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall...
es from which flying buttress
Flying buttress
A flying buttress is a specific form of buttressing most strongly associated with Gothic church architecture. The purpose of any buttress is to resist the lateral forces pushing a wall outwards by redirecting them to the ground...
es (an element typical of Gothic architecture) connect it to the nave. The transept
Transept
For the periodical go to The Transept.A transept is a transverse section, of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In Christian churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform building in Romanesque and Gothic Christian church architecture...
, of five bays, has the same width and height of the nave. At the crossing is a tall octagonal lantern tower, surmounted by a belfry, also octagonal, which ends with a pyramidal cusp in brickwork. The apse has a rectangular plan, a typical feature of Cistercian Gothic edifices.
The façade features stones of different types: green stone from Pralungo
Pralungo
Pralungo is a comune in the Province of Biella in the Italian region Piedmont, located about 70 km northeast of Turin and just north of Biella....
, calcarenite
Calcarenite
thumb|250px|The [[Pietra di Bismantova]] in central [[Italy]] is an example of calcarenite formation.Calcarenite is a type of limestone that is composed predominately, more than 50 percent, of detrital sand-size , carbonate grains...
from Montferrat
Montferrat
Montferrat is part of the region of Piedmont in Northern Italy. It comprises roughly the modern provinces of Alessandria and Asti. Montferrat is one of the most important wine districts of Italy...
and serpentine from Oria. The stone is combined with the red brickwork and white cotto of the upper part of the two side bell towers. The wide gable of the central section, the two blind arcades and the big rose window
Rose window
A Rose window is often used as a generic term applied to a circular window, but is especially used for those found in churches of the Gothic architectural style and being divided into segments by stone mullions and tracery...
in the middle are all elements in the tradition of Lombard
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
-Emilia
Emilia (region of Italy)
Emilia is a historical region of northern Italy which approximately corresponds to the western and north-eastern portions of today’s Emilia-Romagna region...
n Romanesque architecture. The entrance is through three portals, also in Romanesque style, with four orders of small double columns. The lunette
Lunette
In architecture, a lunette is a half-moon shaped space, either filled with recessed masonry or void. A lunette is formed when a horizontal cornice transects a round-headed arch at the level of the imposts, where the arch springs. If a door is set within a round-headed arch, the space within the...
of the central portal has a relief depicting the "Martyrdom of St. Andrew", while that of the left portal shows "Cardinal Bicchieri offering the Church to St. Andrew, enthroned". Benedetto Antelami has been suggested as the author of the two sculptures, although it is more likely that they were executed by one or more of his pupils who had worked in the Baptistery of Parma
Baptistery of Parma
The Baptistery of Parma is a religious edifice in Parma, northern Italy. The baptistery of the Parma Cathedral, it is considered to be the very exact moment of transition between Romanesque and Gothic architecture, and is one of the most important Medieval monuments in Europe.- Description :The...
.
The interior of the basilica is fully Gothic in style, with ogival arcades supported by piers formed by a cylindrical element surrounded by eight small columns. The ceiling has quadripartite vaults. The crossing tower is supported on four pendentive
Pendentive
A pendentive is a constructive device permitting the placing of a circular dome over a square room or an elliptical dome over a rectangular room. The pendentives, which are triangular segments of a sphere, taper to points at the bottom and spread at the top to establish the continuous circular or...
s which are decorated with small columns over corbels; these reach other corbels in the lantern tower where are sculptures (from Antelami's school) representing symbols of the Four Evangelists
Four Evangelists
In Christian tradition the Four Evangelists are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the authors attributed with the creation of the four Gospel accounts in the New Testament that bear the following titles:*Gospel according to Matthew*Gospel according to Mark...
. Beyond the crossing is the chancel, with the presbytery
Presbytery (architecture)
The presbytery is the name for an area in a church building which is reserved for the clergy.In the oldest church it is separated by short walls, by small columns and pilasters in the Renaissance ones; it can also be raised, being reachable by a few steps, usually with railings....
and the rectangular choir, which is illuminated by a large rose window and three mullioned windows, and has wooden seats from the early 16th century.
Artworks include the funerary monument of abbot Thomas Gallus (early 14th century), with a fresco of Lombard school. In the first chapel in the left arm of the transept is a 15th century painted crucifix.
Sources
- S. Baiocco, S. Castronovo, E. Pagella, Arte in Piemonte. Il Gotico, 2004, Priuli e Verlucca Editori, Ivrea, ISBN 88-8068-225-3
- G. Vergani, "L'Italia settentrionale. Le contaminazioni del Gotico", in La Storia dell'Arte, Vol 5, cap. 13, 2006, Electa and La Biblioteca di RepubblicaLa Repubblicala Repubblica is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper. Founded in 1976 in Rome by the journalist Eugenio Scalfari, as of 2008 is the second largest circulation newspaper, behind the Corriere della Sera.-Foundation:...
, Milan - M. Cappellino, Il coro ligneo della basilica di S. Andrea. Agiografia Canonicale in un codice vercellese, 1989, Vercelli