Chiesa of Santa Maria di Pieve Pagliaccia

The church, recently rebuilt and modified (1911), is of ancient origins. It was known as “Plebs Sanctae Mariae de Pagliaccio”, as it can be seen outside in a stone inscription. Its origin is witnessed also by some archives documents: in a Diploma the Emperor Federico Barbarossa of 1163 it is named as “plebem de pelaci”.

During the reconstruction works, the only side of the edifice that was not destroyed was the apse wall, which became the right chapel of the new church, where two fresco cycles can be admired.

The older one (1260) is in the upper part: a Crucifixion and a Flagellation that, because examples so rare of painting of the same period, are of the utmost importance in the history of Art in Umbria.  They were made later than those in San Prospero Church (1225) but in the same period of those in San Bevignate Church (1260-70). A graphic painting style coming from, as stated by the Art Historian P. Scarpellini, the Art of Illumination. It shows a strong black boarding line, and at the same time the “Christus patiens“ iconography, used for the first time by Giunta Pisano.

The second cycle is in the lower part: it is a “Madonna in trono col Bambino e gli angeli” (Madonna in Throne with the Child and Angels - 1320), showing a compositional structure typical of the painting style of Perugia of the time, but also feeling the influence of Giotto and the school in Siena, coming from the big building site of the Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi.