Description
The Church of San Venerio in Migliarina, the ancient parish church of the gulf, is a small Romanesque stone church in the Pieve district of La Spezia. It is one of the oldest buildings on the gulf, standing on a site that has been inhabited for more than 2,500 years.
The gabled sandstone façade is very simple: a single arched portal, a Gothic mullioned window with a little column and a leaf capital and, higher up, a cross cut into the stone. None of the three is aligned with the others.
Inside there is a single nave with two stone apses of different sizes, lit by narrow lancet windows. On the walls are traces of ancient frescoes and, higher up, Baroque frescoes dedicated to St. Venerius.
A trapdoor in the presbytery leads down to the excavations: a Roman wall and an early medieval tomb. Next to the church rises the 11th-century bell tower, built partly with reused Roman bricks, with a staircase set into the thickness of the wall.
Venerius was a hermit who lived between the 6th and 7th centuries on the island of Tino, in the gulf. To protect his remains from Saracen pirates, the bishop of Luni had them brought here; in 860 they were moved even farther away, to Reggio Emilia.
Part of the relics returned to La Spezia in the 20th century and is kept in the Cathedral of Christ the King. St. Venerius is the patron saint of the gulf.
The site is very ancient. Excavations in the 1980s found traces of an Iron Age settlement from the 6th century BC, then a large Roman settlement. Remains of Roman walls can still be seen in the masonry of the apses.
Today's church is the one rebuilt in 1084 by the lords of Vezzano on the foundations of the older building. In 1148 Pope Eugene III made it a pieve, a mother church: from here the religious life of the whole valley was governed, as far as the plain that is still called "della Pieve".
A polyptych of the Virgin painted in 1476 by Jacopo Spinolotto of La Spezia once stood here: its central panel is now in La Spezia's Diocesan Museum.
The gabled sandstone façade is very simple: a single arched portal, a Gothic mullioned window with a little column and a leaf capital and, higher up, a cross cut into the stone. None of the three is aligned with the others.
Inside there is a single nave with two stone apses of different sizes, lit by narrow lancet windows. On the walls are traces of ancient frescoes and, higher up, Baroque frescoes dedicated to St. Venerius.
A trapdoor in the presbytery leads down to the excavations: a Roman wall and an early medieval tomb. Next to the church rises the 11th-century bell tower, built partly with reused Roman bricks, with a staircase set into the thickness of the wall.
Venerius was a hermit who lived between the 6th and 7th centuries on the island of Tino, in the gulf. To protect his remains from Saracen pirates, the bishop of Luni had them brought here; in 860 they were moved even farther away, to Reggio Emilia.
Part of the relics returned to La Spezia in the 20th century and is kept in the Cathedral of Christ the King. St. Venerius is the patron saint of the gulf.
The site is very ancient. Excavations in the 1980s found traces of an Iron Age settlement from the 6th century BC, then a large Roman settlement. Remains of Roman walls can still be seen in the masonry of the apses.
Today's church is the one rebuilt in 1084 by the lords of Vezzano on the foundations of the older building. In 1148 Pope Eugene III made it a pieve, a mother church: from here the religious life of the whole valley was governed, as far as the plain that is still called "della Pieve".
A polyptych of the Virgin painted in 1476 by Jacopo Spinolotto of La Spezia once stood here: its central panel is now in La Spezia's Diocesan Museum.