Church of San Zeno

One of the oldest churches in the area, completed at the beginning of the sixteenth century, was flanked by the cemetery in the early nineteenth century, but the origin of the church of San Zeno dates back to the early Middle Ages.

Church of San Zeno, one and a half kilometers from the castle of Rivoltella, in the middle of the countryside until recent times (in the visit of 1532 alludes only to a domus and a vegetable garden), it was built above a Roman settlement, probably a villa. Today it appears in the forms assumed in the modern age: a plant with three naves divided by pillars and with pointed arches in the central nave (from the early 16th century) and a large rectangular presbytery with a sacristy on the south side (built in the XVII century). century). Some elements also attest to older phases. The oldest structure could correspond to the north-eastern corner of the early medieval church and considering that the southern perimeter of the church has a late-medieval masonry technique, it is probable that the church had a single hall, with the northern perimeter corresponding to the current and the south aligned on the pillars between the central and southern nave. A fragment of a pillar with a girale (5), reused as a building material in the apse, is all that remains of a sculptural furniture from the end of the 8th century, a timely chronological reference for the early medieval church. The pilaster strip is probably related to the Romanesque phase, of which two fresco phases, discovered in 1991, are preserved on the north wall, at the height of the bell tower that is placed there. The oldest, visible at the bottom right, is a simple geometric decoration; to the other, dated between the 12th and the 13th century, a fresco on two registers can be attributed, with a scene of warriors in the lower one and, higher up, two saints with halo, one bearded, the other beardless, beside whom a crowd can be seen in the background.

Historical sources G.P. Brogiolo