POMPOSA. - It is a small center in the commune of Codigoro (Ferrara) belonging to the diocese of Comacchio (v.). Situated on the ancient Via Romea, it owes its renown to the group of buildings constituting the thousand-year-old monastery of S. Maria in P.
A fragmentary epigraph allows the existence of the primitive church to be dated to the 7th century, while the historical records go back only to the 9th century; in fact a letter of Pope John VIII (874) attests that the monastery of P. depended directly on the Apostolic See. Subsequently it was subjected to various jurisdictions, among them the see of Ravenna, metropolis of the region; in the time of the Ottos it was « monasterium in Italia principa quod Pomposia dicitur ». The abbot was a prince of the Empire and through his wealth and papal privileges (cf. Leo IX [1052]: PL 143, 683) and imperial ones could promote the arts and music. Guido of Arezzo (v.) composed the musical scale there; St. Peter Damian dwelt there and addressed some of his writings to the monks of Pomposa (PL 144, 386 and 145, 291); the abbot St. Guido degli Strambiati (1010-46) is remembered as the rebuilder of the monastery; a codex of 1093 gives information about the monastery's Library founded by the abbot Girolamo (1078-1107); of the Archive, dispersed together with the Library during the Napoleonic storm, about 3000 parchments were recovered, donated to Montecassino by Cardinal von Fürstenberg. The Este family, who already in the 11th century granted vast possessions, in 1269 received under their protection the monastery which, later reduced to a gentilitial commendam, was the object of concern and study on the part of the Este historian L. A. Muratori (cf. Antiquitates Italicae medii aevi, V, Milan 1742, p. 337).
Telluric movements and the diversion of the Po made vain the effort that the monks made for several centuries in reclaiming the lands of Pomposa; therefore in the 15th century the monks thought of withdrawing to Ferrara, where the munificence of Duke Ercole I d'Este had offered the land for a vast monastery that constitutes one of the most imposing monumental complexes of the Emilian Renaissance (v. FERRARA).
Bibliography8 works
Dante Balboni
ST. MARY OF POMPOSA
The oldest monument in the group of buildings erected by the Benedictines of P. is the church, whose present brick structure, derived from those of the basilicas of Ravenna of the 5th-6th centuries, dates back to the late 8th century. It has three naves, divided laterally by seven bays, with capitals and pulvins of various periods: Roman, Byzantine, pre-Romanesque. The ample apse has a polygonal development on the outside and a semicircular one within. In front of the facade a second atrium was built in the 10th century, with three arches, where the ornamental elements, due to the stonecutter Mazulo, form a marvelous plastic and chromatic complex with the recurring geometric and plant friezes, in terracotta, on the curtain wall of red and ochre-yellow bricks, the oculi with marble transennae, the vigorous sculptures with symbolic animals and the gleaming majolicas of Eastern origin. Inside the church one admires first of all the ornamentation of the pavement or flagging, in which three zones are distinguished: the first, Ravennate, in tessellated work, between the 8th and 9th centuries; the second (11th century) in sectile and tessellated work; the third (12th century) in Alexandrine work with rich polychrome effects. Among the fresco paintings that adorn the walls there stand out, in the conch of the apse, Christ in majesty, the angels and the saints, with the patron abbot Andrea (1351), painted on Byzantine-Romanesque schemes, perhaps by the Bolognese Vitale delle Madonne, while in the zone below are depicted Evangelists and Doctors and stories of St. Eustace, among which the one of the martyrdom is very lively. On the walls of the greater nave other less expert Bolognese painters of the same period have depicted, with a certain popular eloquence, events of the Old and New Testament with episodes of the Apocalypse. On the inner facade wall unfold the admonitory scenes of the Last Judgment. Beside the church rises the majestic bell tower, about 50 meters high, like a lighthouse of monastic civilization, dominating the adjoining lagoon valleys. Its author Deusdedit (1063) employed there the schemes of Lombard building in the slender pilaster strips, in the superimposed orders of windows with marble colonnettes and in the slender conical spire, nor did he neglect to use certain motifs of his predecessor Mazulo, such as the terracotta friezes and the ceramics. Of the vast monastery adjoining the church there remain, with traces of art, the chapter hall, the dormitory above it and the refectory, now transformed into a small museum of the abbey. The chapter hall is adorned, on the outside, with a fine portal and two two-light ogival windows, in terracotta, of the 13th century, and, within, with a robust fresco scene of the Crucifixion (probably Bolognese) and with a series of Prophets and saints, paired, painted in chiaroscuro by a rough Romagnol brush (all works of the 14th century). The pictorial gems of P., however, are found in the refectory and are the frescoes that a valiant master of the school of Rimini executed there, very probably Pietro, between 1316 and 1320, harmonizing in his own way Byzantine refinements and firm Giottesque definitions of reality. The central compartment depicts the Redeemer, between the Virgin, the Baptist, St. Benedict and St. Guido, and the side scenes represent the Last Supper, with the round table, and the miracle of the holy abbot of Pomposa Guido degli Strambiati, who, dining with his host Gebehard, archbishop of Ravenna (1026), turns water into wine. A singular note of civil life, in the building complex of P., is given, finally, by the Palazzo della Ragione, where the abbots administered justice; a massive brick construction, of Venetian type (11th century), with a horizontal development, with two orders of loggias with marble colonnettes, the lower one interrupted, in the center, by the access archway. Around this building, as around the others of the Benedictine hermitage, dilapidated or disfigured by uncomprehending later generations, the provisions of restorers were exercised in recent decades, with results that can be considered among the happiest and most meritorious, for caution of aesthetic criteria and proven technical skill. - See pl. CXVI.
