Duomo di Spoleto

Spoleto's cathedral closes the long stairway of Via dell'Arringo with a stone facade, rose windows and a mosaic dated 1207. In the apse, Filippo Lippi's fresco cycle survives in remarkable condition; a nearby chapel holds an autograph letter of Saint Francis.

Why it matters

The cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta is the religious and civic centre of Spoleto and the seat of the archdiocese of Spoleto-Norcia. A document records a bishop's church of Santa Maria del Vescovato on the site in 956; the Romanesque cathedral was consecrated in 1198 by Pope Innocent III. Piazza del Duomo, before the church, also hosts the Festival dei Due Mondi. Urban VIII, formerly Maffeo Barberini, archbishop of Spoleto from 1608 to 1617, promoted a major renewal of the interior.

What to notice

A Renaissance portico with five arches, added around the turn of the sixteenth century by Ambrogio di Antonio Barocci and his workshop, shelters three medieval portals. The central portal, known as Porta Paradisi, has sculpted decoration on its jambs and architrave. Above the portico, a row of rose windows includes a large central opening, which sits in a square frame carved with the symbols of the four Evangelists. The gable has three pointed arches, with a mosaic of Christ enthroned between Mary and John in the central arch, signed by the mosaicist Solsternus and dated 1207.

The Latin-cross interior has three naves of six bays each. The central nave has a cosmatesque floor of stone, porphyry and serpentine; the side aisles have a lozenge floor laid in 1481 by Matteo Rosso Balsimelli da Settignano. Filippo Lippi painted scenes from the life of the Virgin in the apse, including the Annunciation, the Death of the Virgin and the Coronation. Lippi died in Spoleto and is buried in the cathedral. The Chapel of the Relics preserves the autograph letter Saint Francis sent to Brother Leo; his conversion is associated with Spoleto by tradition.

Context and history

After the twelfth-century rebuilding, the cathedral was consecrated in 1198, and its bell tower rose in the thirteenth century. Later in the seventeenth century, Pope Urban VIII, formerly Maffeo Barberini and archbishop here from 1608 to 1617, promoted a reconstruction that remade much of the nave’s interior. Work continued into the eighteenth century, when Giuseppe Valadier designed the transept altars and the edicules along the aisles. The result is a Romanesque exterior with a Baroque interior, and the layered facade reflects its history.