Description
The Church of Santa Maria del Gradaro is a Romanesque-Gothic church in Mantua, on Via Gradaro, just back from Lake Inferiore: begun in 1256, it is one of the finest examples of the city's medieval sacred art.
The asymmetrical gabled façade has a rose window and a doorway from 1295 signed by Jacopo and Ognabene Gratasola. Inside, three naves hold the frescoes: the Easter story, from the Last Supper to the Resurrection, and in the apse prophets, saints and two Madonnas with Child. The bases of the wall that once separated the faithful from the monks survive too.
Tradition has it that Saint Longinus was martyred here, the centurion who brought the Most Precious Blood to Mantua. After Maria Theresa's suppressions, the church became a military warehouse in 1775 and went almost two centuries without worship; its name may come from the Latin cretarium, the clay of the lakeshore.
The asymmetrical gabled façade has a rose window and a doorway from 1295 signed by Jacopo and Ognabene Gratasola. Inside, three naves hold the frescoes: the Easter story, from the Last Supper to the Resurrection, and in the apse prophets, saints and two Madonnas with Child. The bases of the wall that once separated the faithful from the monks survive too.
Tradition has it that Saint Longinus was martyred here, the centurion who brought the Most Precious Blood to Mantua. After Maria Theresa's suppressions, the church became a military warehouse in 1775 and went almost two centuries without worship; its name may come from the Latin cretarium, the clay of the lakeshore.