Santa Maria della Consolazione, Todi
Santa Maria della Consolazione is a Renaissance-style pilgrimage church in Todi, Italy. The centralized, symmetric plan, surmounted by a tall dome, distinguishes this Renaissance church, from the more common elongated basilica or Latin-cross designs. Another Todi sanctuary church, also with a symmetric layout, is the Tempio del Santissimo Crocifisso on the eastern end of town.
History and description
Originally, the site held a small chapel with an aedicule painted with an icon of the Madonna. the Legend holds that a worker, who was blind in one eye, had the sight of that eye restored when he wiped it with a cloth that had cleaned the icon. The church was built at the site where the icon had been housed, and now contains the icon at the altar.
Contributions to a confraternity assigned to the construction of the church allowed building to begin by 1508. The church was not complete until 1608 at the cost of over 34000 scudi.[1] The original project is attributed to Donato Bramante, despite the absence of documentation.[2][3][4]
For the first four to five years, the architect
In 1531, the Compagnia di Santa Maria della Consolazione who managed the site ceded the church to
The church is built in a Greek cross plan: three apses are polygonal and the one on the north side is semicircular. The apse is surmounted by a square terrace with four eagles at the corners, from which the dome rises.
In the interior, twelve niches in the first three apses house giant statues of the apostles. Also noteworthy is the wooden statue of Pope Martin I, a native of the Todi area.[8]
See also
Gallery
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Base plan of church
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Interior plan
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Interior
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Exterior
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Wide shot
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Surrounding view
Sources
- ^ Todi guida per i forestieri, by Giulio Pensi, Armando Comez (1912), Pages 15-16.
- ^ The other church-sanctuary with a centralized plan in Todi, the temple of the Santissimi Crocifisso was also attributed to Bramante.
- ^ Visiting bishop Camajani in 1574 attributed the design to Bramante Pensi and Comez (1912), Pages 14-15.
- ^ The Academy and Literature, Volume 30, 1866, William Mercer, Communication, page 366. 2007-03-01. Retrieved 2013-11-28.
- ^ "San Maria della Consolazione by Cola da Caprarola at GreatBuildings". GreatBuildings. Retrieved 2020-08-23.
- ^ Key to Umbria, entry on church.
- ^ Key to Umbria.
- ^ Text in part derived from Todi entry