Rosone del Duomo

The churches in Spoleto are mostly of the later mediaeval period, namely Romanesque or Gothic. The Basilica di San Salvatore and some crypts date back, however, to the early Christian era. Their structures and external elements are often decorated with sculpture and painting of high artistic quality. The churches maintain, however, the linearity and austerity which characterise them as holy places of individual worship. Unfortunately, many of the original internal decorations and layouts have not stood the test of time against the attempts, especially in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to alter and muddle them. The result is often a profoundly modified atmosphere pompously and perhaps even artistically redecorated but which no longer transmits the simple a meaningful, essential part of urban living. Indeed, these churches make up and characterise the very same urban fabric. It is easy, in fact, to hear people using the name of a church to indicate the name of a particular part of the city. That is, people use a part for the whole when they say, for example, I'm going to San Filippo, San Domenico, to the Duomo, to Sant'Eufemia, etc, when they really mean, to piazza Mentana, piazza San Domenico, piazza al Duomo, to the Bishopric. Is this a form of genetic, albeit unconscious, religiosity ?