Pieve di San Cassiano in Decimo

Where Ravenna's farmland begins, an early medieval parish church has watched the via Petrosa for over a thousand years. Its name counts Roman miles, its bell tower hides a pagan god, and Byzantine-glazed bowls are set into the brickwork.

Why it matters

The pieve is a surviving example of the parish system that organised the Romagna countryside. The building retains a single-nave plan and an apse that is round inside and polygonal outside, an uncommon form among the rural churches of the plain. Its dedication to fourth-century martyr San Cassiano connects the church with the city; the saint also appears among the mosaics of the Basilica di Sant'Apollinare Nuovo.

What to notice

The quadrangular brick tower has tiers of mullioned windows and is dated to the tenth century. It is known locally as la Bartolla, after a fragmentary statuette in the wall once thought to depict a woman and now interpreted as a male pagan deity, most likely Apollo. Byzantine polychrome bowls, or bacini, are set into the masonry as ornament. The twelfth-century upper facade has a central bifora flanked by two brick masks.

Context and history

The place name Decimo records distance: the church stands ten Roman miles along the via Petrosa from its starting point at Forlimpopoli. Worship here is documented from the ninth century; reference works also record a piviere in 896 and later restorations, including twentieth-century work that removed later additions while retaining the early medieval plan. Medieval objects are preserved within the church. The nearby MDT didactic museum contextualises finds from the Campiano district.