Description
The Chiesa del Cristo, also known as the Church of the Crucifix or of San Domenico, is a 13th-century church in Brindisi's old town. You'll recognize it by its facade striped in white and gray stone, and it holds two of the most remarkable painted wooden sculptures of medieval Apulia.
The pointed facade alternates courses of light and dark stone and is topped by a cornice of small stepped arches. At its center opens a large, richly decorated rose window, the result of a restoration.
Inside there is a single nave with a wooden truss roof, closed off by a tall pointed triumphal arch. The apse is small and later, from the 15th century: the original one was demolished to make room for the city walls.
To the right of the entrance, in a niche, sits the Madonna Enthroned, carved in wood by an Italo-French woodcarver. On the high altar is the Crucifix, probably German work. Both date from the 13th century and are among the most remarkable painted wooden sculptures of that century in Apulia.
On the walls are two Baroque altars. The one on the right, dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary, was commissioned in 1640 by Marco Antonio Noguerol, commander of the Castello a Mare, the fortress built by the Aragonese on the island of Sant'Andrea, in front of the harbor.
The church was built in 1232 by Friar Nicola Paglia of Giovinazzo and became the home of the Dominicans in Brindisi. Paglia had studied law in Bologna and had joined the order right there, among the friars of the city's convent.
As prior of the Dominicans' Roman province he founded convents in Perugia, Trani, Brindisi, Orvieto and Naples, and Pope Gregory IX entrusted him with preaching the crusade to the Holy Land. He died in 1256 in Perugia, in the convent he had founded, and his relics rest beneath the high altar of San Domenico. In 1828 the Church confirmed his veneration as Blessed.
The pointed facade alternates courses of light and dark stone and is topped by a cornice of small stepped arches. At its center opens a large, richly decorated rose window, the result of a restoration.
Inside there is a single nave with a wooden truss roof, closed off by a tall pointed triumphal arch. The apse is small and later, from the 15th century: the original one was demolished to make room for the city walls.
To the right of the entrance, in a niche, sits the Madonna Enthroned, carved in wood by an Italo-French woodcarver. On the high altar is the Crucifix, probably German work. Both date from the 13th century and are among the most remarkable painted wooden sculptures of that century in Apulia.
On the walls are two Baroque altars. The one on the right, dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary, was commissioned in 1640 by Marco Antonio Noguerol, commander of the Castello a Mare, the fortress built by the Aragonese on the island of Sant'Andrea, in front of the harbor.
The church was built in 1232 by Friar Nicola Paglia of Giovinazzo and became the home of the Dominicans in Brindisi. Paglia had studied law in Bologna and had joined the order right there, among the friars of the city's convent.
As prior of the Dominicans' Roman province he founded convents in Perugia, Trani, Brindisi, Orvieto and Naples, and Pope Gregory IX entrusted him with preaching the crusade to the Holy Land. He died in 1256 in Perugia, in the convent he had founded, and his relics rest beneath the high altar of San Domenico. In 1828 the Church confirmed his veneration as Blessed.