CASTELSEPRIO. — A town in the province of Como. The church of S. Maria foris portas, particularly noteworthy for its floor plan and its painted decoration, is preceded by a covered and rather low narthex and is single-naved with an apse. Two other apses, of which only the structures remain, opened along the sides: one accessed through two narrow arches so that they seemed separated from the nave. Therefore, in terms of its floor plan, the building does not fit into either the typical longitudinal scheme or that of a "placynog"; this is probably due to the fact that, in the architect’s idea, the construction—undoubtedly very close to a central plan—would have had an elevation and a roofing system different from those it eventually received, perhaps for technical reasons.
Bognetti believes that the church dates back to the 7th century and was built by a community of Eastern monks who had settled in Italy. Beneath the frescoes of an unknown Lombard artist of the 15th century, paintings of great interest were revealed after 1944 in the apse. They are arranged in two long horizontal superimposed zones and depict scenes from the cycle of the Infancy of Jesus. Notable among them is the Annunciation, inspired by the apocryphal Gospels, since the Virgin is represented seated in the act of spinning. The cycle is interrupted in the center by a roundel featuring the bust of the *Trevroνρ α̂ τ o ρ*. Other paintings once adorned the triumphal arch: among those preserved is a medallion with the symbol of the *ε to μν ziz*, flanked by two archangels carrying a flying globe (*ataurophoros*).
The frescoes are certainly earlier than the second half of the 9th century: indeed, graffiti referring to the time of the Milanese archbishop Tadone (863–65) were found on the painted plaster. They may perhaps be attributed to the 7th century. As for the composition and use of colors, the artist, endowed with a powerful personality, follows the Hellenistic pictorial tradition and swiftly traces, with an elegant and lively touch, the figures and backgrounds of his compositions. De Capitani d’Arzago has put forward the hypothesis that he was an Oriental Melchite who may have left Palestine, Syria, or Egypt following persecution by the monophysite nationalist mob. — See Pl. LIX.