Pieve di Bardone

The parish church of Bardone, also known as the parish church of Santa Maria Assunta, is located in Bardone, a small hamlet in the municipality of Terenzo. The parish church is located halfway up the Apennines, in the Roman road that joined Parma and Luni. In the Middle Ages, the route, known as the Via di Monte Bardone, was followed by the pilgrims of the Via Francigena coming from Northern Europe and bound for Rome. The first documents attesting to the existence of the church, dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta, date back to 1004 while the construction as we see it today is the result of heavy structural interventions, carried out between the seventeenth century and the nineteenth.

The present parish church is a small building, with a typical hut-shaped facade, entirely covered with irregular blocks of stone. Centrally located is the main entrance portal squared, surmounted by a window and decorated with bas-reliefs of the eleventh century, depicting a hunting scene and, at the top, the Agnus Dei. On the portal on the right side of the church there is a lunette depicting a Madonna with Child and a Saint. The bell tower, leaning against the north side wall, is characterized by the presence on each side of a double row of round arched windows.

Internally, the structure of the church consists of a single nave covered with trusses, a rectangular apse and four side chapels added in 1600. Inside there are two slabs depicting the Deposition of Christ and the Coronation of the Virgin, clearly derived from antelamica, but made with a more rustic language.