Chiesa di San Francesco

Gothic bay after Gothic bay, San Francesco preserves the severity that a twentieth-century restoration rescued from an eighteenth-century baroque overlay. Consecrated at the high altar in 1233 and rebuilt to its present form by 1270, it holds the tomb of Tommaso da Celano, first biographer of St Francis, and opens onto a Renaissance cloister frescoed with the order's family tree.

Why it matters

This is the principal church of Tagliacozzo and the most historically layered building in the town. The municipal portal traces its origins to a church possibly identifiable with the "S. Maria in Loreto" of a papal bull of 1115 — also called "extra moenia", outside the first walls — and records a fifteenth-century diurno quoting an inscription of Girolamo de' Iacobutis, a Tagliacozzo native who became bishop of Veroli, according to which the high altar was consecrated on 20 November 1233. The present Gothic church was completed by 1270, within living memory of the battle fought on the plain below in 1268, and declared a national monument in 1902. Since the sixteenth century it has held the tomb of the beato Tommaso da Celano, Francis of Assisi's first biographer.

What to notice

The facade has a pointed portal and a rose window separated by a string course; its decoration is dated to the fifteenth century. The interior is a single nave divided into three nearly square bays with cross vaults and a raised presbytery. The keystone of the first bay carries the date 1533. Two arcades flanking the first presbytery bay suggest a transept that was never built. The bell tower was restored in 1970. Restoration completed around 1960 removed the Baroque overlay added in the eighteenth century and recovered the church's Gothic form.

Context and history

The Franciscan church developed from an older devotional site outside the early walls. Its 1233 consecration and completion by 1270 place it in the generation after the 1268 battle on the plain below; the Orsini and Colonna, successive lords of the duchy, contributed to its fabric. The interior was given a Baroque treatment in the eighteenth century. The Napoleonic suppression of 1809 closed the church and convent; the complex later served as municipal offices and schools, and many of the friars' paintings, objects and books were dispersed. Declared a national monument in 1902, the church underwent restoration completed around 1960, followed by work on the bell tower in 1970. The adjacent Renaissance cloister has cross vaults on square piers, a 1608 fresco of a genealogical tree of Franciscan families, lunettes with scenes from the life of St Francis and a well-head bearing the Orsini roses.