Church of Santa Maria in Castello (Tarquinia)

The Church of Santa Maria in Castello , located in the city of Tarquinia, in Lazio, it is the most representative Romanesque building of the city. ^[first]

The construction of the Church has a very articulated history: the project began in 1121 and the lease on which the building was to rise was an area displaced and uninhabited of the city called Castrum Cornetum.
The construction of the church had most likely been entrusted to several architects since on the jambs of the main portal there are inscriptions where Pietro di Ranuccio, Nicola Di Ranuccio, Giovanni and Guittone are mentioned to which Nicola had given birth.
We still do not have enough reliable information to confirm that these are the architects of the building, but we know for sure that they have contributed to the decorations. The church was finished in 1207 and consecrated in the same year by Innocent III. ^[2] It was fully active until 1435 and was restored several times until the total abandonment in 1567 with its deconsecration. ^[3] After centuries of abandonment and the use as a stable in the Napoleonic age, the Church was contacted in the twentieth century, and, by the will of the diocesan bishop Msgr. Gianrico Ruzza, still is officiated every Saturday. ^[4]

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The architecture of the building fully respects the typical Romanesque canons of northern Lazio and presents clear influences of Tuscan and Lombard art.

In the rectangular facade there are three portals, of which the most important is the central one built by Pietro di Ranuccio in 1143. topped by an all -sixteenth -century arched structure contains seven discs decorated in the past with cosmatesca invoice mosaics.
Above the central door there is a double -sided window also framed by an arched molding that continues along the jambs to the windowsill with semi -colonials of Lombard architecture; The capital of the central column is decorated with an acanthus leaf motif. The inscription present on the “Nicolaus Ranucii Magister Romanus Fecit Hoc” mild bifure attributes to Nicola Ranuccio the authorship of the same. ^[5]

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The church, free of transept, is divided into three naves: the central nave is made up of five spans while the 10 side naves, so that every span of the central nave is double the side one.
Both the central and the lateral nave are covered by ribbed cruise vaults.
The church floor consists of refined mosaics with geometric motifs of the cosmatesca imprint that are ruined and fragmented today also due to the presence of the French troops who came to Italy at the invitation of Pius IX during which the church was used as a stable.
The Ambone, the work of Giovanni son of Nicola, is located in the middle of the fourth largest span. It is trapezoidal in shape and bears a semi -accepted loggler at the edges of the edges of which there were four stolen torchion columns today.
The baptismal font, octagonal in shape, is located in the third span of the right nave and is of the immersion type. Each dial of each side is covered with a different type of marble whose origin, according to the local tradition, is indicated by the destroyed Roman city of Gravis.
On the side of the church stands the tower of Santa Maria in Castello which is the highest in the whole city. ^[6]

Inside the church you can read numerous inscriptions including the following:

• Ranucii Piercing stones not a dogmate mere work surprised, too, did it.
• Iussit Hoc Aurari Corneti Consoquelatus silicet Andreas Ranieri Ioannis Petrus idem (the Consulate of Corneto, represented by Andrea son of Raniero, by Giovanni and Pietro, ordered this golden ornament).
• Devoyon- au 7ième chausseurs à cheval- December 10, 1867 (Devoyon- at the seventh regiment on horseback on 10 December 1867); Registration made by a soldier who testifies to the presence of French troops in Tarquinia.

• Enrico Spiclato and Romano Serena, Rome and Lazio. The Romanesque , Palombi Editori, ISBN 88-16-60274-0.