Chiesa di San Francesco

Trevi's Church of San Francesco preserves a medieval interior with an apse cycle depicting the life of the Madonna, the tomb of Blessed Ventura and a Renaissance wall organ. During the communal period, the nave also served as a place for civic assemblies when bad weather prevented meetings in the piazza.

Why it matters

Documents confirm a Franciscan community in Trevi by 1258 and 1285; tradition places Saint Francis's own preaching there in 1213. The church grew from the earlier Santa Maria, whose west-gable inscription dates to 1268, and became a setting for both religious art and the commune's arenga assemblies. It now forms part of the San Francesco museum complex.

What to notice

The west gable bears the inscription “Magister Angelo fecit hoc opus anno Domini MCCLXVIII mense Maii,” referring to the earlier Santa Maria church. The rose window with radial colonnettes also survives from that building. The fourteenth-century south portal has clustered colonnettes, foliated capitals, two crouching lions and a mystic lamb in the keystone; a late-fourteenth-century fresco of the Madonna and Child between Francis and Clare occupies the lunette. Inside, the apse walls hold eight panels of the Stories of the Life of the Madonna, with evangelists in the lunettes, and an early-Trecento iconostasis cross hangs above the presbytery.

Context and history

The present church grew from the late thirteenth century onward, enlarging the Santa Maria mentioned in the 1268 inscription. When bad weather stopped open-air assemblies in the piazza, the commune met in the nave. Blessed Ventura, buried here in 1310, became associated with the church; his relics were translated to the Petroni chapel in 1523. The convent was rebuilt in the early seventeenth century, and Bernardino Gagliardi painted its cloister lunettes with stories of Saint Francis around 1645–48. A suppression decree of 28 May 1810 led to the friars' departure. The wall organ, commissioned in 1509 from Mastro Paolo Pietro di Paolo, retains its original pipes and was restored and inaugurated again in 2005. Other works include a Crucifix attributed to the Maestro della Croce di Trevi, dated around 1320, and a canvas by Ascensidonio Spacca.