Cattedrale di San Nicola (Bagnoregio)

Bagnoregio's Cathedral of San Nicola became the diocesan seat after the 1695 earthquake damaged Civita's cathedral. It preserves an illuminated Bible associated with St Bonaventure and a silver reliquary containing an arm relic of the saint.

Why it matters

When the ridge of Civita cracked on 10 June 1695, the old cathedral of San Donato was compromised and the bishop's seat moved to Bagnoregio. The collegiate church of San Nicola took on the cathedral title. Its Bonaventure Bible and silver arm reliquary connect the town with Giovanni di Fidanza, the Franciscan theologian and cardinal born here in the thirteenth century.

What to notice

A marble inscription beside the entrance records the church's consecration to San Bonaventura in 1779. The Diocese of Viterbo notes the Bible's painted decoration, the silver reliquary containing the saint's arm, and a Renaissance tabernacle. The arm relic was transferred from Lyon to Bagnoregio in 1491.

Context and history

The church was once known as Santa Maria della Neve; its earliest origins remain uncertain. In the sixteenth century it became the parish and collegiate church in place of the deteriorating San Nicola and was rededicated to St Nicholas of Bari. Bishop Tommaso Speradio reopened it after major works in 1606. Following the 1695 earthquake, the cathedral title passed from San Donato in Civita to this church; it was consecrated to Saints Nicholas and Donato in 1700. Further enlargements and restorations followed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is now one of the co-cathedrals of the Diocese of Viterbo.