Church of San Paolo - Bastia Umbra
The Church of San Paolo of Abbadesse is located outside of the town centre of Bastia Umbra. It is now annexed to the municipal cemetery built in 1862 and situated near the confluence of the Tescio and Chiascio rivers.
The Church of San Paolo of Abbadesse is located outside of the town centre of Bastia Umbra. It is now annexed to the municipal cemetery built in 1862 and situated near the confluence of the Tescio and Chiascio rivers. The church, built between the 11th and 12th centuries, was connected to a Benedictine monastery under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Assisi.
In 1212, at the request of San Francesco of Assisi, he received Santa Chiara of Assisi for a few weeks, to defend her from her family that repeatedly, even by force, tried to bring her home. The Romanesque church has a gabled façade with a single entrance portal surmounted by a lancet window and a belfry with a single bell. The semicircular apse, externally decorated with half-columns, corbels and arches, has at its center a mullioned window surmounted by a relief with two doves. The church has a single nave with exposed wooden roof beams. In the apse there are fresco fragments of the Perugia school depicting a Madonna and Child with San Paolo and San Benedetto. On the walls trace remains of walled doors are visible, which perhaps once connected the church with the monastery that was destroyed in 1389. The apse contains a column to which Santa Chiara clung when her family tried to take her away.