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Church of St. John at the Sepulcher
Church of St. John at the Sepulcher
Religion
Affiliation	Catholic
Province	Brindisi
Region	Apulia
Location
Location	Via San Giovanni al Sepolcro, 5 - 72100 Brindisi 72100
Country	Italy
Geographic coordinates	40°38'19.71"N 17°56'34.77"E
Architecture
Style	Romanesque

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The Church of St. John at the Sepulcher (also known as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and Temple of the Sepulcher) is a Romanesque church located in the Brindisi old town, closed for worship but open to the public with guided tours.

History

The building, a Norman-era construction (11th century), was possibly erected by Bohemond returning from the Crusades as local tradition has it. It has been thought, without reason, to be a baptistery and some have even believed it to have been, but erroneously, rebuilt on an early early Christian temple.

Architecturally, the shape of the church harkens back to the models widespread in medieval Italy of circular or octagonal churches. The latter were often inspired by the Rotunda of the "Anastasis," that is, the circular building built, also in the Middle Ages, around the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the object of centuries-long protection by the Crusaders. On the other hand, suggesting that the building was intended to evoke the Holy Sepulcher of Jesus in Jerusalem is the fact that religious buildings with similar forms and functions were erected in the same eras in other even distant places, such as the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher in Bologna or the Rotunda of San Lorenzo, in Mantua.

The church must have belonged to the Canons of the Holy Sepulchre, attested in Brindisi as early as around 1126, when Arnone, prior of the Holy Sepulchre in Brindisi, is appointed by Pope Honorius II among the judges called to settle the dispute between the Benedictine nuns of Santa Maria Veterana and Archbishop Bailardo; again it appears to belong to that Order in the years 1128, 1139, 1146, 1182 as we learn from some papal documents in favor of the Canons. Some scholars have speculated that the church may have been built by the Templars, but this hypothesis does not appear to be supported by some documentary evidence.

It still belonged to the canons of the Holy Sepulcher in 1220, when it is mentioned as such in the well-known privilege of Pope Honorius III by which the pontiff from Orvieto welcomed the churches of the Order under his direct protection.

By a bull dated March 28, 1489, Pope Innocent VIII declared the Order of the Canons of the Holy Sepulcher extinct and decreeded that its property passed to the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem and Rhodes. From this time on, the church, having assumed its present name, belonged to this Order.

In 1761 there was an earthquake that destroyed most of the buildings in Brindisi; the Church of San Giovanni al Sepolcro did not collapse, but suffered considerable damage as a result of the total collapse of the trusses and roof, as well as the displacement of the axis of the supporting columns, which to this day is deviated. This led to a long deterioration and the loss of 80 percent of the frescoed surface, until the mid-nineteenth-century restoration that led it to serve as the temporary home of the Civic Museum from 1850 to 1955. Numerous excavation campaigns within it have unearthed ancient Roman remains, including the floor of a building identified as a domus visible today through an opening in the floor.

San Giovanni al Sepolcro in Brindisi - Capital of the column to the left of the portal

San Giovanni al Sepolcro in Brindisi - Figure of elephant at the base of the right portal jamb

It has a circular plan; the perimeter walls are made of large carparo ashlars. The main portal is remarkable, architraved and framed by a cusped prothyrum on two columns supported by lions, with capitals with fantastic figures. The portal jambs are richly ornamented with reliefs, with the inhabited vine shoot, a typical Apulian Romanesque motif: there are fight scenes between mythological and real animals, scenes that refer to the Old Testament (Samson, Noah), and the depiction of a Norman warrior recognizable by the long, oval shield. Also of interest is the figure inserted at the top of the left stupite. This is probably a ruler (with crowned head), placed in front of what appears to be a fabric curtain, a tent, typical of the representations of Byzantine emperors, still found in mosaics of the time. A small doorway to the south has jambs decorated with animal tiles from the early Christian tradition in flattened relief (10th century).

In the interior, with a horseshoe plan, a ring of eight cipollino marble and granite columns with varied capitals (some of ancient origin) supports the roof, rebuilt in the restoration in place of the collapsed central dome; around it runs the ambulatory, interrupted in the back by a wall on which the last two columns rest.

On the walls are remains of frescoes (Deposition of Christ, Madonna and Child, St. George and other Saints) attributable to the 13th-14th centuries.

Interior

Enterior of the curch
Enterior of the curch
Crypt view from the ground floor
Detail of frescoes

Bibliography

Giuseppe Moscardino, La chiesa San Giovanni al Sepolcro di Brindisi in the history of art, Brindisi 1961.
Benita Sciarra, The church of S. Giovanni al Sepolcro in Brindisi, Brindisi 1962.
Rosario Jurlaro, I primi edifici di culto cristiano in Brindisi, in Atti del VI Congresso internazionale di archeologia cristiana, Vatican City 1965, pp. 684 ff,
Pasquale Testini, Note for the San Giovanni al Sepolcro of Brindisi, in San Leucio of Alexandria and the West. Proceedings of the Second National Conference on "The Patron Saint" (Brindisi November 10-11, 1984), Brindisi 1991, pp. 83-101.
Sergio Bracco, The Knights of the Holy Sepulcher: history of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Crescentino 1993
Benita Sciarra Bardaro, The Church of San Giovanni al Sepolcro in Brindisi: history of a perennial restoration, in Studies in Honor of Michele D'Elia. Archaeology, Art, Restoration and Protection, Archivistics, edited by Clara Gelao, Matera-Spoleto 1996, pp. 558-566.
Margherita Pasquale, Notes on the decorative apparatus of the Brindisi churches of San Giovanni al Sepolcro and San Benedetto, in San Giovanni al Sepolcro and San Benedetto in Brindisi: a restoration for the city, edited by Giovanni Matichecchia, Bari: M. Adda, 2001.

External links

"Scheda sulla chiesa di S. Giovanni al Sepolcro". Tempio di San Giovanni al Sepolcro - Brindisiweb.it.
"P. Testini, S. Giovanni al Sepolcro". Centro Studi per la Storia dall'Arcidiocesi di Brindisi-Ostuni.
"Approfondimenti sulla chiesa di S. Giovanni al Sepolcro". Brindisi Virtual Tour - Brindisiweb.it.
Papiri, Edizioni Penne e. "IL CAVALIERI DEL TEMPIO - BRINDISI e i Templari (p10...)". Ruggero da Flor, templare e pirata.

Category:Rotundas (architecture)