Two Romanesque churches - Part 1, Santa Pudenziana

A little day trip around southern Umbria

Let’s take a walk together around two late Romanesque Italian churches in Umbria. They’re both small and in, to say the least, obscure out-of-the-way places, but each holds treasures of typical Romanesque glory, one from the early period and the other from the late Romanesque, and equally fascinating.

Santa Pudenziana, built between 998 and 1036. Probably the work of Abbot Pietro I of Farfa and his nephew Hadrian. (All photos by me and my pals this Sunday, unless otherwise noted.)

A first taste

A few weeks ago I outlined what I was intending to do with the Members-only section of World of Hilarity, Sacred Images, one of which was to give little guided tours, including video, of some of the treasures of Christian art with which I’m more or less surrounded here in Umbria. Of course, the drawback was that I had no idea how to do that. I’ve been looking at YT instructions on how to make decent quality documentary style videos, equipment I need and whatnot, and I’ve got a friend who's said she’s willing to donate her professional level editing skills for a time while I work it out.

This is not one of those. This is just some photos I snapped and a few shaky-cam videos¹ I took on Sunday afternoon with my not-very-good android phone, when a friend was up visiting for the weekend from Rome with a hire car and we decided to go for a drive. We went to check out the little town I almost moved to a few years ago but had never visited, Lugnano in Teverina.

For those who haven’t spent much time in Umbria, Orte is the first major stop out of Rome from Tiburtina station on the Florence line. Then you change trains at Orte for the Assisi line and Narni is another ten or 15 minutes further on.

At the end of 2020, the nice sisters whose convent chapel hosts the Masses I attend were thinking of buying an empty convent from the diocese of Terni there, so before I came to Narni I was looking very closely at this little gem of a place.

Before we get to Lugnano, we can stop at this little church of extraordinary antiquity in the countryside near Narni.

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I’d like to warmly welcome the many, many people who have signed up to be free subscribers to World of Hilarity in the last few days. I will be continuing to produce a post per week for all subscribers, and from today will be publishing extra, more in-depth material - with lots of exclusive pictures, videos and downloadable extras - on our subject, Christian sacred art and art history, for paid members.