Chiesa della Trinità o del Martyrium - 40125

A masterpiece!

One of the "seven churches", originally had to be built in the form of a basilica with 5 naves, with an apse in front of the holy garden (Pilate's courtyard) and the facade facing east, exactly as it was originally the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem wanted by Constantino. Probably due to lack of funds, Petronius was unable to complete the building which remained unfinished. It currently houses the large wooden group of the Adoration of the Magi, with life-size statues. It is the oldest known nativity scene in the world made up of statues in the round. The last chapel on the right was recently dedicated to the Bersaglieri, but is devoid of artistic content

In the so-called Pilato courtyard is a large stone basin that represents the one used by Pilate washing his hands after the death of Christ. In reality, its primary function was to collect the offerings of the faithful Lombards in the 8th century. Opposite is the church Del Martyrium also called Calvary. It is the oldest church of the site, dating from the paleochristian between the third and the sixth century. It was originally composed of three choirs surmounted by a dome and was the first to be dedicated to the two martyrs. Today there remains only one long transept of five naves. One of them houses a very old carved crib of 1270 called Adoration Dei Magi and painted by Simone de'Crocifissi.

On the opposite side of the Cortile di Pilato courtyard is the Chiesa della Trinita o del Martyrium, the Church of the Trinity or Martyrdom, from the 13th century. In her famous chapel there is a group of carved statues depicting the "Adoration of the Magi". It is believed that these are the world's oldest statues depicting scenes of the Nativity.

Also called the Church of the Holy Cross or of Calvary or of the Trinity, it is the building with the most uncertain history and the most changing function over the centuries, as evidenced by the different names. Around the 4th-5th century there was perhaps a sacellum for the cult of the martyrs buried here. According to one hypothesis, in the fifth century it was built by Petronius in the form of a basilica with five naves, with an apse facing west towards the holy garden (Pilate's courtyard) and the facade towards the east, exactly as it was originally the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem wanted by Constantine. According to another hypothesis, it was instead part of a complex that included the current Holy Sepulcher (anastasis), the ambulatory corresponding to the current Pilate's Courtyard and the basilica oriented from west to east like the current one, but which the project actually wanted to extend well beyond the two current spans. Probably Petronius was unable to complete the building which remained unfinished. Subsequently, with the advent of the Lombards, it would become a Baptistery and modified again by the Franks. At the beginning of the year 1000, during the reconstructions carried out by the Benedictines, there were many uncertainties about how to finish the work, considering that even the original Holy Sepulcher had been heavily altered and precisely in those years the Fatimite caliph al-Hakim carried out its destruction . Thus having lost the historical references of how it was originally, the Benedictines were unable to complete it. The current form visible today thanks to the late nineteenth-century renovations that removed the subsequent additions is similar to the church left by the Franks. The interior of the church with its five naves and only two bays Currently it is divided into five naves and only two cross-vaulted spans, with the facade in front of the Pilate's courtyard and the apses-chapel facing east, both built in neo-Romanesque style on the model of the Holy Sepulcher built by the Crusaders. The side chapels are square while the central one has the shape of a mini-basilica with a single deep nave, a small protruding transept and apsidiole. Between the central chapel and the two lateral ones there are two niches on each side. From the time of the Crusades until 1950, a relic of the Holy Cross was kept in the central chapel. Of great interest, in the chapel on the left, is the large wooden group of the Adoration of the Magi, with man-sized statues. It is the oldest known nativity scene in the world made up of statues in the round.