San Gregorio fuori le mura in Rimini (Ariminum):

the sad story of a church of the Vth century.

S. Gregorio fuori le mura was the name of one of the most ancient churches existing in the town of Rimini (Ariminum). We know that it had been built outside the town-wall, on the left side of via Flaminia, the road that, beginning from the Augustus’ arch of the roman Ariminum, get to Rome .

Concordant ancient sources report that the empress Galla Placidia promoted the building of some churches during her stay in Ariminum (Ist half of the Vth cent.) and, one of them - Santo Stefano - became famous all over Italy, for its wonderful mosaics. We know that Santo Stefano rose more or less in front of S. Gregorio, on the other side of the road,

and disappeared in the XIIth cent. when it was destroyed by a fire and never more rebuilt.

Back to S. Gregorio, we can say that some XIXth cent.-drawings, showing the building inside and outside, actually make us think that it could belong to the Vth cent and -maybe- to the group of churches founded by the empress in Ariminum.

One of the most important reasons pointing out S. Gregorio as belonging to the Vth cent. was the presence of a precise kind of iconography of the "tetramorph" in its mosaics.

In fact, we know that until the early VIth cent. the iconography of the four " animals" described by St. John in his vision of the Glory of Christ in the Apocaliypse had not been connected with the four evangelists yet; so, before VIth cent. the books of the Gospels were not usual attributes for the four "animals" as they will be in the following centuries.

So, as far as the S. Gregorio’s case is concerned, since the eagle, the man, the bull and the lion don’t hold the books of the Gospels, they cannot be considered the symbols of evangelists; they still represent only the "animals" of the Apocalypse.

We can say that this situation is typical of the iconography of the Vth cent.- and we can find an extremely famous sample of it just in Galla Placidia’s mausoleum in the near town of Ravenna.

Anyway the early mention of this church can be found in a paper of the XIIth cent. and in many other more recent documents.

San Gregorio had survived to many changes and destructions that the town of Ariminum (that become "Arimino" and later "Rimini") had to stand to during around fivetheen centuries, until , ".. around the half of the year 1834 the ancient temple outside Porta Romana (the Augustus’ arch N.d.A) was demolished for real barbarity…."(P. Paolucci 1854).

What had happened?

We know from the old chronicles, that S. Gregorio had been deconsacred in the early tens of XIXth cent. and, in the year 1834, it was bought, toghether with the land around it, by a rude landlord whose name we won’t quote here.

Of course, when the church was sold, it had already become famous for the magnificence of the mosaics and for being a rare and almost intact sample of the late roman - imperial architecture.

These were the reasons because some citizens, and mainly Giovanni Morolli, "student in architecture" ("ingegnere novello"), asked the new owner to respect and preserve the little building trying to give explainations about its historical and artistic value.

The request probably made the things worse.

The chronicles report that the landlord felt almost threathened by the words of the "student"and decided to give a sort of absurd proof of his power over his own property.

He made the church destroyed and called Giovanni Morolli and others to watch the destruction, showing what he was able to do.

So, one of the most shameful and useless destructions in the history of the town (and probably not only in its history) was done in a few days and saying that this was a loss for the knowledge of the ancient architetcture and heritage is certainly non exaggerated.

All we can see now of the ancient building of S. Gregorio is what is showed by beatiful drawings (by Pietro Santi XIXth cent.) and some admiring written descriptions of the mosaics; this makes the story of the church maybe even more painful and sadder at our eyes.

Carlo Valdameri

N.B. The author of this writing is conscious that the linguistic level of the english text above (and of some other english texts on this website) is probably too low for the subject dealt with.

Of course, he is sorry for that. Nevertheless he hopes that the effort to make the texts as intelligible as possible for english readers will be anyway appreciated.

Italian text - San Gregorio fuori le mura: la triste vicenda di una chiesa del V°secolo. - Anteprima 3

http://spazioweb.inwind.it/iconografia/Sgregitaliano.htm

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S. Gregorio - Anteprima 1 - S. Gregorio Preview 1

S. Gregorio Anteprima 2 - S. Gregorio Preview 2

San Gregorio - Vista dell'interno - S. Gregorio - Inner view