Type:

Luoghi della cultura; Oggetto fisico

Category:

Museums; Religious buildings

San Bevignate Church The Chiesa di San Bevignate, at the gates of the town of Perugia, is in Via Enrico dal Pozzo, right in front of the Monumental Cemetery. A series of complex factors contributed to its construction, in mid 13th century, approx. Firstly the “flagellanti”, a movement led by Raniero Fasani that starting from Perugia, in 1260, sprang up all over Italy. The emerging social class, having risen to power, felt the necessity to legitimize its authority with its own temple and saint, and chose the mysterious Bevignate, who was never canonized and of whom there is no certain documentation. Finally there were the numerous experiences of the life of the hermits in the area and the presence of the Templars, who after having settled in the territory needed a new church to substitute that of San Giustino d’Arna. The Templars succeeded in obtaining the patronage of the edifice from the Pope. After the suppression of the Templar Order, in 1312, the church at first passed under the Knights of St John of Jerusalem, then under the nuns, the Sisters of St John, and later passed under the patronage of several confraternities, up to 1860, when it became property of the State and was entrusted to the Municipality of Perugia. Externally the church has an unadorned façade, following the model of the edifices of the Templar Order in Palestine. The inner part of the church has a unique-nave with two spans covered by ribbed vaults and an elevated squared apse introduced by a triumphal arch. It preserves 13th-14th century frescoes of great importance, as the Procession of the Flagellant, the Battle Between the Templars and Muslims and the Legend of St Bevignate, whose mantle bears the signs of some graffiti, left between the end of the 15th and the 16th century by the pilgrims, the faithful and the Templar Knights. After a long and complex work of restoration and consolidation to render the construction safe, on 20 April 2009, the former Templar church was officially “returned” to the town. In the San Bevignate Church there is also organized a new exhibition space destined to host a Documentation Center on the History of the Templar Order.