Webcam Martyrs of Liberty Square Gualdo Tadino

Piazza Martiri della Libertà is the heart of the city of Gualdo Tadino. It overlooks the Church of San Francesco, the Cathedral of San Benedetto and the Town Hall. The Church of San Francesco, is one of the first in Umbria, dedicated to the saint. This presents the typical architectural conformation of the churches in the area of ​​Gubbio, Montefalco and Montone; a single nave like the Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi but much simpler and austere.

The frescoes do not show a real cycle but inside we find a work by Matteo da Gualdo "Madonna enthroned with the Child between San Francesco and San Secondo" (restored after the 1997 earthquake). Among the various styles of the frescoes we find Byzantine lines, with elongated faces and "rake hands" and as it happened in the Sienese areas, the client's dress shows symbols of the house to which they belong.

Leaving the church, you can see on the left the Cathedral of Sana Benedetto, built around the 1006th century, but in ancient times it stood outside the walls, in a place called "San Benedetto Vecchio" (Benedictine abbey founded in 1215 by Count Offredo, on the ruins of a ancient hermitage). Precisely the position made it the victim of continuous raids and it was for this reason that in XNUMX the monks moved to a more defensible place. The Cathedral was rebuilt in a late Romanesque-Gothic style, with three portals and above between two oculi a Romanesque rose window, now a symbol of the city. The interior has a plan with three naves, with loggias that open above the minor aisles. The roof consists of cross vaults interspersed with arches, and ends in the large raised semicircular apse, which overlooks the nineteenth-century crypt. The high altar, in the apse area, dates back to the end of the XNUMXth century. with bas-reliefs depicting the life of San Benedetto by Guglielmo Ciani.

The building that stands out with its façade is the Town Hall, built following the destruction of the ancient Palace of the Rectors of Arts and Priors (1751). The council chamber has frescoes from the history of Gualdo (The Battle of Tagina and The Workshop of Matteo da Gualdo).