St. Zeno in Cerea
St. Zeno di Cerea: facade and apses in 1963
New Pictures! See below
The little church arises along the provincial road that brings to Verona; it is introduced, currently, with a salients-shaped facade that gives to the building an aspect common to many "veronesi" Romanesque churches of the XII century
The church took the current aspect after the restorations carried out in 1910 and during which the central nave was risen over the two lateral ones.
Before the church was covered by a roof in two droopings that covered the three naves and made it so much similar to the church of the Bastia in Isola della Scala.
Saint Zeno di Cerea introduces, to the inside, the division in three navee for means of square pillars of cooked bricks that inglobe the primitive columns perhaps made in tufa and cooked bricks alternated as Aslan (12) asserts.
The church is covered by a visible truss roof and finishes with three apses; it is completely made in lateritious. Pomello (13), in a pamphlet published in 1914, refer the tradition, truly live in the place, than the church had been founded by Matilde from Canossa, enfeoffed in 1110, from the Chapter of the canonicals of Verona of the castle of Cerea.
The restoration of 1910 has been, perhaps, excessive: the walls of the central nave were, in fact, raised until obtaining a fully raising body and the facade, than before was bell-shaped, came to assume a salients-shaped aspect, similar to Saint Salvaro di Legnago.
In my opinion many are the points of contact of the church of Cerea with that one of Bastia: that makes we think that they must have been the same workers to construct the two buildings.
You can note, as a matter of fact, either in Cerea or in Isola della Scala, rows of larger bricks, alternated with rows of smaller bricks, with a colour effect that gives a sort of movement to the walls. There is, then, in the two localities, the presence of a "pseudo protiro" that makes we think like in the two churches the same constructors have worked and that the true facade of the building of Cerea had been hut-shaped like that one of the Bastia.
We can assert, with a measure of certainty, than the primitive columns of the church have been inglobate in the current bricks made pillars around the year 1300 for the presence of a fresco (in the third pillar in the right side) dated 1305; that must have happened because statics of the building had been shown rather defective.
The apses, in the outside appear animated by pilaster strips in bricks. The bell tower shows, in the inferior part, a technique very similar to the one of the bell tower of the church of the S.S. Apostles of Verona and, in the superior part - especially in the bell cell that shows mullioned windows metal ring simple metal-ring shaped - remembers us the bell tower of the little church of S. Mary the Ancient near the "Arche Scaligere", in Verona. The manufact of Saint Zeno di Cerea does not seem a lot far away, stilistically, from Saint Salvaro di Legnago, especially in the inside that introduces a nearly basilica spatiality, effect that had to be much more emphasized when the columns support the light arcades.
Ando so the tradition that wants this church founded by Matilde di Canossa, Mistress ofCerea, is confirmed by some stylistical data and would therefore confirm the date that is found in the headstone of the church of Saint Salvaro in St. Pietro (Legnago).
Notes:
(12) ARSLAN WART, Op. Cit.
(13) A. POMELLO, "The ancient church of Saint Zeno di
Cerea" Villafranca, 1914-
(13) A. POMELLO, La chiesa antica di San Zeno di Cerea, Villafranca, 1914-
Where is this Church? (zoomabile map from Mapquest)
The church before 1910 restorations
New pictures taken on April, 22nd 2000 by Francesco Tregnaghi
