Summaga

SUMMAGA. - Benedictine abbey, in the diocese of Concordia, from which it is 3 km. away; the Latin name "Summa aqua" is connected with the marshy terrain, reclaimed and made habitable by the monks.

Probably founded between the 9th and 10th centuries, it held jurisdiction over several villages and parishes; changed into a commendam in 1430, the commendatory cardinal Carlo Rezzonico, later Pope Clement XIII, restored the church in 1740; with his nephew, cardinal Carlo Rezzonico, in 1790, the commendam was suppressed and the parish established.

Of the first Basilica a chapel survives, which served as the apse of the Romanesque church, erected in the 12th century, whose central apse still preserves a notable pictorial cycle, divided into three zones: at the top, within a mandorla, the Virgin among the angels, and the symbols of the evangelists; in the center Christ among the Apostles; finally, above a delicate veil, the wise virgins and the foolish virgins. The fresco is assigned to the end of the 12th century or to the early years of the 13th century and has the genuine accent of the Romanesque art of southern and central Italy and particularly of the Benedictine pictorial cycle of Tivoli.