Description
The Church of San Benedetto is a Romanesque church in Brindisi's old town: an austere 11th-century building with a massive bell tower, a portal carved with dragons and a quiet cloister, the last remnant of an ancient convent of Benedictine nuns.
On the right rises the Romanesque bell tower, with triple-arched windows and small arches. On the side of the church, marked by blind arcades, is the portal: a frame of woven wickerwork and a lintel with flat figures of men fighting dragons.
The interior has the shape typical of Apulian churches with domes in a row: the nave is covered by four cross vaults with broad ribs. Among the Romanesque capitals on the marble columns, the most curious is the one on the first column on the left, with oxen, lions and rams joined at the head.
On the walls is an Adoration of the Shepherds by the Brindisi painter Jacopo De Vanis, from 1570. In the former sacristy, now a section of the Diocesan Museum, highlights include a painted stone Madonna of the Snow from the early 16th century and papier-mâché statues.
From here you enter the square cloister, surrounded by a portico of four-light openings on slender polygonal columns: some capitals are figured and date from the 11th century, others were remade. On the east side are the remains of the abbey palace of Santa Maria Veterana.
The convent, dedicated to Santa Maria Veterana, perhaps already existed before the 11th century, when it was showered with gifts by Geoffrey, Count of Conversano and lord of Brindisi, and his wife Sichelgaita.
In the 18th century the nuns built a new convent, which ended up hiding the facade: the portal was then taken apart and reassembled on the side, where it is today. The Benedictine nuns left in 1866, when the order was suppressed.
The restoration of the 1950s removed the Baroque altars, which were lost: today the interior looks as it did in the 11th and 12th centuries. Excavations in the cloister found Roman-era buildings farther down.
On the right rises the Romanesque bell tower, with triple-arched windows and small arches. On the side of the church, marked by blind arcades, is the portal: a frame of woven wickerwork and a lintel with flat figures of men fighting dragons.
The interior has the shape typical of Apulian churches with domes in a row: the nave is covered by four cross vaults with broad ribs. Among the Romanesque capitals on the marble columns, the most curious is the one on the first column on the left, with oxen, lions and rams joined at the head.
On the walls is an Adoration of the Shepherds by the Brindisi painter Jacopo De Vanis, from 1570. In the former sacristy, now a section of the Diocesan Museum, highlights include a painted stone Madonna of the Snow from the early 16th century and papier-mâché statues.
From here you enter the square cloister, surrounded by a portico of four-light openings on slender polygonal columns: some capitals are figured and date from the 11th century, others were remade. On the east side are the remains of the abbey palace of Santa Maria Veterana.
The convent, dedicated to Santa Maria Veterana, perhaps already existed before the 11th century, when it was showered with gifts by Geoffrey, Count of Conversano and lord of Brindisi, and his wife Sichelgaita.
In the 18th century the nuns built a new convent, which ended up hiding the facade: the portal was then taken apart and reassembled on the side, where it is today. The Benedictine nuns left in 1866, when the order was suppressed.
The restoration of the 1950s removed the Baroque altars, which were lost: today the interior looks as it did in the 11th and 12th centuries. Excavations in the cloister found Roman-era buildings farther down.