Pieve di Fornovo

The parish church of Fornovo is dedicated to the Madonna Assunta and rises near the Via Francigena; it is a very important testimony of the first Christianization of the Apennines. According to tradition, the present church was built on what was once the Roman temple dedicated to the god Mercury.

The first place of Christian worship was built in the Lombard era around the year 854. A primitive parish church dates back to the eleventh century: it must have had three naves with three apses, of which we have hints in the internal columns. In the XIII century the most important intervention was realized with the creation of the iconographic apparatus and the construction of the narthex.

In 1578, according to the new rules dictated by the Council of Trent, the ambo was dismembered, preserving only a few sculptures, reused as decorative elements in the temple and in the nearby church of Santa Maria Assunta in Bardone, the altar dedicated to St. Margaret of Antioch fell into a worse fate: it was destroyed and the saint was named another altar within the place of worship.

During the first half of the 18th century the church underwent further modifications to better adapt it to the Baroque style; the wooden beams were replaced with a series of vaults and two more side chapels were added. In 1800 other interventions were made, such as the shifting of the reliefs that we see today in the facade and the closure of the narthex (porch placed in front of the church) that became the current facade. The present layout of the church consists of a plant with three naves preceded by narthex with entrance to the west and presbytery with the apse to the east.

The facade is gabled and is entirely covered with cubic blocks of stone, above the piers are set two capitals of Romanesque style with human representations and zoomorphic.

Stop and observe the reliefs of the facade and the archivolt of the side portal, enter and look at the slab with stories of St. Margaret on the altar. This slab was part of the dismembered ambo; we can put it in relation with the slabs, belonging to the same ambo, now preserved in the nearby parish church of Bardone, which we recommend you visit.