Spoleto Cathedral in white and pink stone, with a Romanesque façade, rose windows, and a portico, overlooking a sunny square.
View on map

Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta in Spoleto

The cathedral of Spoleto, dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta, stands in the scenic square built at the foot of the Sant'Elia hill, almost like a theatrical backdrop at the bottom of the wide staircase of Via dell'Arringo. Surrounding it are the 16th-century Palazzo Rancani Arroni, the Palazzo della Signoria, the small octagonal church of Santa Maria della Manna and the small Caio Melisso theatre.

Built in Romanesque style in the 12th century over the ancient church of Santa Maria in Vescovado, it underwent several transformations over time. In the 13th century, the bell tower and façade were built, completed in 1207 with the addition of the beautiful external mosaic. Towards the end of the 15th century, a five-arched portico designed by Ambrogio Barocci and his school was added to it: this was done both to make the building more majestic and to create a monumental terrace to display the venerated icon of the Virgin, preserved inside the temple, during the town's main festivities. However, the major changes to the original structure took place inside, between the 17th and 18th centuries, especially at the time when Maffeo Barberini (1608 - 1617), the future Pope Urban VIII, was archbishop. In particular, the naves were almost entirely rebuilt. The interior renovations were only completed in the 18th century, when Giuseppe Valadier built the aediculae at the two side aisles and the main altars in the transept area. 

The exterior: a blend of styles and decorations

Today the façade is gabled, made of white and pink stone blocks from the mountains around Spoleto - which creates pleasant chiaroscuro effects - and is flanked by the imposing square bell tower.  The upper part of the façade is divided into two overlapping bands by a cornice resting on blind arches. In the upper order, there are three rose windows and three large ogival niches; in the central one, one can admire the Byzantine-style mosaic depicting Christ Enthroned between the Madonna and St. John the Evangelist signed by master mosaicist Solsterno and dated 1207. In the lower order there are five more rose windows, of which the central, larger one is richly carved and ornamented with mosaics and flanked by symbols of the four Evangelists.

Façade of Spoleto Cathedral with arched portico, rose windows, golden mosaic, and the Rocca Albornoziana in the background.
Interior of Spoleto Cathedral with a white nave, chandelier candelabras, wooden pulpit, and frescoes in the apse.
Baroque chapel in Spoleto Cathedral, featuring a decorated altar, sculptures, columns, paintings, and an illuminated fresco above.
Frescoed chapel in Spoleto Cathedral, with biblical scenes, Renaissance decorations, and a sculpted marble aedicule.
Renaissance fresco in Spoleto Cathedral depicting Saint Jerome in prayer, decorated columns, and an open doorway to another room.
Renaissance frescoes in the apse of Spoleto Cathedral, featuring detailed biblical scenes, painted architecture, and rolling landscapes.

The Renaissance-style portico, designed by Barocci, a master who had worked with Francesco di Giorgio Martini at the Ducal Palace in Urbino, opens onto the exterior with five round arches separated by Corinthian columns. Inside the portico are the three entrance portals to the cathedral. The magnificent central portal, dating from before 1198 - the date of consecration of the church by Pope Innocent III - is known as the Porta Paradisi, and has rich sculptural decoration on the jambs and architrave, making it one of the finest examples of stone ornamentation from the Romanesque period.

The interior: masterpieces through the centuries

The interior of the church, which was radically transformed in the first half of the 17th century, is Baroque and Latin cross-shaped, with three naves of six bays each, a transept, a large semicircular apse and a dome without a drum. The mosaic floor of the nave remains from the Romanesque cathedral, mostly from the 12th century with cosmatesque motifs. The floors of the aisles were instead made by Matteo Rosso Balsimelli da Settignano in the second half of the 15th century.

A bronze bust of Urban VIII by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1640) stands in the counterfacade niche, in memory of the renovation work and in homage to the pope, former bishop of Spoleto.

The first chapel in the right aisle, named Eroli after the bishop who commissioned it in the mid-15th century, houses one of the masterpieces by Bernardino di Betto known as Pinturicchio: the fresco of the Madonna and Saints.

Before reaching the right transept, one can admire the painted Cross by Alberto Sotio (1187) in the iconography of the living Christ (triumphans) developed in central Italy.

In the right transept, at the altar, a painting by Annibale Carracci and, on the left wall, sepulchre of the painter Filippo Lippi (died in Spoleto in 1469), designed by his son Filippino and made by an unknown 16th-century Florentine sculptor.

To the right of the presbytery, the 17th-century Chapel of the Holy Icon is so called because of the presence of a 12th-century Byzantine tablet, donated to the city by Frederick Barbarossa as a sign of peace.

Sacred treasures: frescoes, relics and the medieval crypt

The apse is undoubtedly the focal point of the Spoleto Cathedral’s pictorial decoration, entirely covered by the splendid frescoes by the Florentine painter Filippo Lippi and helpers, depicting Stories of the Virgin, painted between 1463 and 1469. On the back wall, in the curve of the apse, one can admire the Annunciation on the left, the Dormitio Virginis in the centre and the Nativity on the right; above, the Coronation of the Virgin in the presence of angels and saints. In the centre of the presbytery is the high altar in polychrome marble, the work of Giuseppe Valadier (1792), flanked by four tall candlestick-holding columns.

Finally, on the left aisle is the Chapel of Relics, which houses wooden sculptures and inlays from the 16th century, but above all an exceptional testimony: one of only two surviving autograph letters written by St. Francis addressed to Friar Leo.

From the chapter house, it is possible to access the 9th-century crypt of San Primiano, which is the only remaining element of the ancient early-medieval building that existed before the present cathedral. Ancient frescoes depicting Stories of St Benedict and St Scholastica can be admired there.

Explore the surroundings
Main attractions in the vicinity