St. Peter in Cantalovo in Bevilacqua
(New pictures taken in oct. 1999! See below)
facade and apse of the church of S. Peter in Cantalovo (original photos)
Situated to the extreme limit of the zone dominated by the Romanesque of Verona province, in the last town of the province of Verona on the road for Padova, this small churc was conserved " in extremis " by prof. Giuseppe Fiocco when it was (1) being demolished in 1919. A photo that shows the church already lacking of the roof proves that.
The ready intervention of the emeritus studious saved this monument important not only by the architectonic point of view, but mostly by the historical point of view.
It is a small rectangular construction with drooping roof, closed by a facade adorned with a little concave tribune situated over the door, with one small loophole on the left and, up, with one cross-shaped window. By the sides of the entry door two wide open windows are seen, today, opened in order to have light inside when the little church was deprived of those splay-shaped that had to be similar to ones in the "sister" windows that now you can still see from the outside on the long sides of the church (just four on the right side, two on the left) in harmony with the three in the semicircular apse that closes the building to north.
The handwork is all made by cooked bricks.
The inside, consisting in only one room, is left, unfortunately, in in a state of complete abandonment, in a discouraging desolation (*1999 note: fortunately not anymore!). On the sidewalls appear traces of an ancient pictorial decoration, of rather ingenuous making.
Fiocco (2) attributes such paintings to the end
of the 1300, or at the beginning of the 1400.
The little church it is without any doubt very very ancient like
demonstrate, in the low part, and in the absidale tribune, the
rows of wide and low bricks, nearly completely lacking of lime,
still following the technique of the Roman buildings, to which
kinf of construction lead back the masonries made in the kernel
not by lateritious, but by a conglomerate of concrete and crock.
The aspect of the ancient monument does not
exceed for importance that of the many little Romanesque churches
of Verona countryside, but the history gives to it an importance
that by far exceeds the most modest value of its architecture.
Over the door it is found, in fact, an iscription barbariously
carved on a "white Verona" marble block .
The first uncertain letters of this iscription did not allow to
understand the importance of it. It goes to a parish priest of
Porto of Legnago, Don Angelo Antonini, the merit of
having reported for the first time having draft it from
manuscripts documents of an other parish priest, Don Luigi Soave,
totally unaware of paleography (3). Antonini had to recognize
that in the iscription the little church was remembered as
"ancient pieve of Porto" and subsequently Don
Trecca (4) brought back it like incomprehensibile.
The inscription is the following:
H PLEBS PORTI ANTIQUA, EHI SUO TRATORIO
SITA
M.C.L.X.I. CUR. CU. F. TPABAT. ET HA BALDOINO. FU. ERAT.
Fiocco resolved it this way:
HAEC PLEBS PORTI ANTIQUA, ET
EI SVO TRATORIO SYTA, M.C.L.X.I.
CURABATUR CUM FRIDERICUS IMPERABAT. ET
HOC A BALDUINO FACTUM ERAT.
and gave so the translation: This
is the ancient "pieve" of Porto, situated however in
its territory, reconstructed, in the 1161, by work of Balduino,
while Emperor Frederic.
The translation is not literal, because it did not allow it, in
fact, the erroneous grammar, but this is exactly the trace of the
barbaric ignorance that gives the surest proof of the originality
of this inscription. "Teratorium" for latin
"territorium" allows us to compare it with others
written medieval inscription of the Verona area, especially for
the abbreviation of Frederic marked with one single F.
Anciently the little church was the "pieve", that is
the parochial church of a village called Porto, which - in the
1161 - had to be not so close to the building if the restorer
felt the need to explain that this church was located however
in the within of the territory.
S. Peter in Cantalovo was therefore the "pieve" of a
little town that historical events had removed from the "
mother " town that had now a new parish from which our
little church felt to depend. A mercyful Balduino restores it in
the 1161, reigning Frederic "Barbarossa" (red beard).
Evidently this Balduino had to be very famous in the zone and a
very devout person, not only to God but also to the Emperor,
therefore, with high probability, a Ghibelline. A medioevale
historiographer, Ottone from Frisinga, in its reports
(5) speaking about the battle happened in 1142 between citizens
of Verona and Padova due to the port and the arrangement of the
Adige river says to us that a branch of the river passed to the
left of Bevilacqua, nearly in the river bed of the current Fratta
river. On that branch there was the battle between Padovani and
Veronesi: the Veronesi won; then the " right of chain "
was transported from the old river bed of the Affige, to the
actual one pertaining all to the Veronesi.
The village, risen because of the "passage" or
"port" on the river, was newly founded so, nearly for
case, but with its old name, next to another village to which the
fortune and the progress they had will later tie it up forever,
and was built around a new church dedicated, too, to S. Peter
around 1142. This news of the Frisingensis asssume great
importance because it allows us to date, with a sure precision,
the Romanesque sculptures of barbaric taste that existed in house
of the Cav. Bonomi from Porto destroyed during the last word war
II , from some famous studiouses, datables to ninth century (6).
They would be instead the last sculptural remainders of this
ill-fated daughter of our little church of Bevilacqua closed to
the cult in 1805 and demolished in 1878, when the climb was
arranged that brings to the current bridge on the Adige river:
the church rose in fact on the place in which today the
containments of the river are found.
The title and the right of parochial passed to the church of S. Peter in "S. Maria delle Grazie", Dominican, whose origin goes back before that the municipality of Porto was transferred to Legnago for decree of the "Serenissima" Republic of Venice in 1582. It comes so to fall the interpretation that was given to the " Portus Lemniaci " in documents of the 900 nearly all referred to the actual "Porto of Legnago" while instead they regarded to the other passage of the Adige. From the reading of the iscription of our little church another question rises spontaneous: who was the Balduino that is there remembered? Its name, beside that one of the Barbarossa, makes to think - as we have already said - to a Ghibelline, and being without some title, it makes to think to a family that had to be a very well known in the country in which the church rises. The thought runs easily to one of the family of the Scala, Lords of Verona, whose protagonists in those times were not still much famous, but however already rich ones and known in the peasantry, so much to grant territories to Guglielmo Bevilacqua, become their partisan. A confirmation to this hypothesis gives Da Re, which, in a deed of 1159, it finds mentioned like witness a Balduino of Scale (7). The small church of S. Peter in Cantalovo near Bevilacqua, in its modest architectonic structure, would be so witness of the most important historical events for the zone zone and particularly regarding Porto and Legnago, events that can be reassumed so
- before the 1142 the church and the village of Porto rose close to Bevilacqua, along the blanks of the current Fratta river, that then was one of branches of the Adigem river.
- the new parochial church dedicated to S. Peter and constructed in Porto of Legnago rose after the 1142 from the battle between Padovani and Veronesi.
- the " Portus Lemniaci " of documents around to year 1000 cannot be identified with the current Porto that were independent from Legnago until the 1582, and after the joined decree of the "serenissima" administratively joined to Legnago whose name added to his own.
Still today the parochial church of Port is dedicated to the " Blessed Virginl of the Health " and to the " Saints Peter and Paul " and the two more ancient streets of the village carry two somewhat symptomatic names and that, on the supply of what we have previously cleared, still become more meaningful: New St. Peter Street and Old St. Peter street. He is not therefore out of place to deduce that the two toponyms are a memory of the two churches, the new and the old one, both dedicated to S. Peter.
Notes:
(1) G. Fiocco, in " Madonna Verona " - Verona. 1919
(2) G. Fiocco, op cit.
(3) Don Angelo ANTONINI, historical Signals around to the image of the Madonna of the Health of Port of Legnago, Legnago, 1918.
(4) DON G. TRECCA, Legnago until the sec. XX. Verona, 1900
(5) OTTONIS EPISCOPI FRISINGENSIS, Chronicon in Monumenta historica Germaniae, Hannover, 1868
(6) To, LUCKS, History of the art, Milan, 1903. (7) G. Da Re,
" the Capitolare Archives ", marked Coil To C12 M5 N6.
New digital pictures taken in Oct, 16, 1999:
Where is this church? (zoomable map from Mapquest)
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