Chiesa di Santa Maria di Fossale

Built in 1659–60 to enclose a beloved image of the nursing Madonna, the hexagonal church of Santa Maria di Fossale was destroyed in 1976 and rebuilt so faithfully that its seventeenth-century shape reads without interruption. A medieval wooden crucifix is its oldest and most treasured work.

Why it matters

The hexagonal church was built to enclose a devotional image. The name Fossale points to the ground itself: the church stands where a defensive moat once ran outside the second ring of Gemona's walls, and the nobleman Marcantonio Locatello raised the building in 1659–60 to house a fresco of the Madonna allattante, the nursing Madonna, associated with reports of a miracle in 1655. Destroyed by the earthquake of 1976, it was reconstructed between 1990 and 1993 with such fidelity that the devotion continued without a break. The church's oldest and most treasured work is a painted wooden crucifix of the thirteenth or early fourteenth century, gathered from another church.

What to notice

The unusual hexagonal plan gives the church the scale of a small chapel rather than a parish church. The central panel frames the fresco of the nursing Madonna, the image around which the whole church was built, venerated since the tears reported in 1655. Close by stands the nobilissimo Crocifisso duecentesco — a large painted wooden crucifix of the thirteenth or early fourteenth century, rescued from the adjacent Oratory of the Crucifix, itself linked to the destroyed church of San Giovanni. The backdrop of the fainting Virgin and mourners is an early-eighteenth-century composition by the Gemona painter Giovanni Battista Tiani, to whom four canvas paintings of the Apostles on the walls are also attributed. Two gilded and painted wooden altars are attributed to the workshop of Gerolamo Comuzzo, with panels by Melchiorre Widmar from the 1660s and 1670s.

Context and history

The seventeenth century built this church twice over, in a sense: once in masonry around 1659–60, and again in dignity through the 1735 rebuilding and enlargement, with consecration following in 1744. The earthquake of 6 May 1976 erased the church in seconds, along with the oratory that guarded its crucifix. The decision afterwards was to return it exactly: reconstruction between 1990 and 1993 followed the original hexagonal form on the same ground between via dei Conti and the Duomo's quarter. The official portal includes the church in its record of Gemona's religious heritage. Its survival of function matters as much as its walls: the Madonna's image, the crucifix and the Tiani canvases were reinstalled, so the church re-entered service with its collection intact rather than scattered.