La Pieve di Sant’Abbondio alla Motta

THE PARISH CHURCH OF SANT’ABBONDIO

The small parish church of Sant’Abbondio is the mother church of the parish of San Bonifacio. It stands on the slopes of a modest hill called “Motta”, not far from the current center of San Bonifacio but separated from it by the river Alpone. On the Motta there was the castle of which we have the first news in the will of Count Milone in 955 AD, within which there was the chapel dedicated to San Bonifacio which would later give its name to the town and to the family of the Counts. It is possible that this chapel was for a long time the ecclesiastical seat of the first community resident in the castle. As we have seen in the chapter dedicated to the castle, the site of the Motta was on the border of the counties of Verona and Vicenza marked by the course of the Alpone. The border remained the same until 1147 when, following the Peace of Fontaniva, the Vicentines ceded to the Veronese, for the help they had received from them in the war against the Paduans, a large strip of territory to the east including the localities of Costalunga, Montecchia di Crosara, Villanova, Locara, San Bonifacio, Arcole, Zimella and Cologna Veneta. However, if the political border underwent a change, the diocesan border maintained the ancient limits with the Alpone acting as a border.

When Alberto di San Bonifacio, perhaps the most illustrious of the exponents of the ancient lineage of the Counts, made his will on 15 February 1135, he left all his assets "in episcopatu Veronensi et Vicentino" to the Abbey of Villanova and did not worry in any way about the parish church of San Bonifacio; evidently the parish church of Sant’Abbondio did not yet exist and Alberto’s legacy will create that disparity of treatment that will be the reason for the endless dispute between the parish and the Abbey. A series of disputes began between the archpriest of San Bonifacio and the Abbot of Villanova over the rights of the tithes which first led to a sentence from the bishop of Vicenza in favour of the Abbot (1168) and then a papal bull (1169) confirming the bishop’s sentence. It is probably in these years that the church of Sant’Abbondio was built. The first document in which it is mentioned is a notarial annotation from 1177. We also have memory of the walls that protected the fortification and the village, from a document from 1208 from which we can deduce the constitution of the village as a free municipality in which the “vicinia”, or the assembly of the inhabitants, gathered in the square in front of Sant’Abbondio which was still the only parish church. The community of San Bonifacio had finally managed to have its own church and a certain autonomy from the wishes of the Counts, even if the dedication to the Lombard saint (Sant’Abbondio bishop-patron saint of Como), little known in the Veronese area, can only be explained as further interference by the Counts of San Bonifacio, given their ties with Lombardy.

The beginning of the 13th century was a stormy period for Verona and the struggles between the factions reached their peak. In 1207 the castle was besieged by the Montecchi, enemies of the San Bonifacio and the situation for the inhabitants of the village became increasingly difficult. It is no coincidence that in these years the parish seat was moved beyond the Alpone, to the new and larger Santa Maria (the first document that mentions it is from 1222), in the position of the current Duomo and Sant’Abbondio remained a simple dependency.

The church was therefore built in the second half of the 12th century, as a parish church for the community living in the village adjacent to the castle of the counts of San Bonifacio. It has a single nave with external dimensions of 16.4 meters in length and 8.9 in width. The large apse with a diameter of 6.3 meters is inserted into the east wall. The trussed roof was rebuilt in 1900. Something remains in the current church from the 12th century construction. Some characteristics of the wall structure of Sant'Abbondio that have been preserved are specific to the 12th century and there are also other clues that indicate that the current church is largely the same building constructed then.

The part of the masonry preserved on the north and west facades is made of horizontal courses of irregular thickness of bricks, interspersed with rows of squared blocks of limestone with the typical workmanship of the 12th century, as in the nearby churches of Villanova, Belfiore and Scardevara. This polychrome masonry characterizes the most important churches in Verona, built in a period ranging from 1120 to 1200, such as the Cathedral, San Zeno, SS. Trinità and S. Stefano. The south side of the church, difficult to see because it overlooks the adjacent courtyard of Palazzo Scudellari, is perhaps the most interesting because it has been preserved as it was. The façade originally had to repeat well-tested patterns of a “hut” façade, as in S. Stefano and SS. Trinità in Verona, with a hanging porch, a mullioned window instead of a rose window, and flying arches.

After the castle was abandoned by the counts in 1243 and the probable destruction it suffered, the church lost its importance.