Webcam Piazza Duomo - Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta Spoleto

Piazza del Duomo in Spoleto is one of the most evocative square in Umbria, overlooked by the Cathedral dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta; the sixteenth-century Palazzo Rancani (later Arroni), the Palazzo della Signoria, the octagonal church of Santa Maria della Manna and the small Caio Melisso theater. The main building is the Romanesque-style Cathedral built in the XNUMXth century on the ancient church of Santa Maria in Vescovado, it has a gabled façade, to which the bell tower was flanked. The upper part of the facade is divided into two overlapping bands by a cornice resting on blind arches.

The two orders that make up the façade are divided as follows: in the upper one there are three rose windows and three ogival niches, in the largest and central there is a Byzantine-style mosaic depicting Christ enthroned with the Madonna and San Giovanni dating back to 1207. Nell ' lower order five other rose windows alternate, of which the central, larger one, is rich in carvings and mosaic decorations and is flanked by the symbols of the four Evangelists. The interior of the church does not respect the Romanesque style of the exterior since it was transformed into a Baroque interior in the mid-seventeenth century, the plan is a Latin cross with three naves, there is a large apse and the altar area is surmounted. from a dome without a drum. In the niche in the counter-façade, a bronze bust of Urban VIII is the work of Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1640). A fresco with Madonna and Saints by Pinturicchio decorates the apse of the first chapel in the right aisle. Before the right transept you can admire the painted Cross by Alberto Sotio (1187) in the iconography of the living Christ (triumphans) developed in central Italy. In the right transept, at the altar, a canvas by Annibale Carracci and, on the left wall, the sepulcher of the painter Filippo Lippi, designed by his son Filippino and made by an unknown Florentine sculptor of the sixteenth century. To the right of the presbytery, the seventeenth-century chapel of the Holy Icon is so named for the presence of a Byzantine tablet of the twelfth century, donated to the city by Frederick Barbarossa as a sign of peace. The apse is covered by the splendid frescoes by Filippo Lippi and assistants, depicting Stories of the Virgin (1467-1469). Finally, on the left aisle, the chapel of the Relics opens, which preserves wooden sculptures and inlays from the XNUMXth century, as well as a of the only two still existing autograph letters from San Francesco, addressed to Frate Leone.