The Church of St Gregory

The Church of St Gregory

The Church of St Gregory is along the road between Castel Ritaldi and Colle del Marchese. The façade, which was restored after the earthquake of 1997, features horizontal strips of white and red stone, into which a recessed door opens. 

The entrance archway, above which the date of the competition of the façade (1141) is inscribed, is decorated with a sequence of scenes and figures: in the lower left is a lion in whose mouth is a spray of raceme that continues along the entire lunette all the way to the mouth of another lion at the other end.

Next the lion is a man eating a bunch of grapes, Samson on the back of the lion, a lion and a gryphon holding a flowering raceme in their mouths, there is a female figure at the top of the archway, perhaps Hope and then there is a winged beast and wrestling animals, followed by a peacock trying to break the raceme with his beak.

 

Above the doorway is an arched window with two small side niches decorated with two columns set on a ledge and crowned with an ionic capital. The rose window is graced on either side by the symbols of the evangelists and two demons alongside figures of prophets.

The star of the original rose window was incomprehensibly mounted on the bell gable.

The church has one nave under a ceiling of wooden trusses and has been completely restored.

The first documents mentioning it date to 1066. The primitive building was partially restored in 1141, probably because its structure was compromised by settling. It served as the parish church of Castel Ritaldi until 1828, when the parish headquarters was moved to within the town's confines. 

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