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Cinisello Balsamo (Milan, Italy): Church of Sant'Eusebio
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 The church of St. Eusebius is located in Cinisello Balsamo, just outside the city limits in the northeast. Despite it being a very small church, it deserves a mention, because its histarical value and because of the presence of frescoes of various periods and of other ancient artifacts.
The church seems to have been actually built in the tenth century, using simple materials such as river pebbles (kept visible in various part of the exterior walls). Localized in the original center of Cinisello, it was dedicated to Saint Eusebius, bishop of Vercelli, to whom to the time the jurisdiction of these lands belonged. It seems that the position of the church coincides with that of an old small cemetery of Christian martyrs.
During the sixteenth century the church suffered a gradual decline, but various restoration works from the end of this century onwards were able to save it. Of particular note is the restoration work started around 1879 by the parish priest of St. Ambrose Vitaliano Rossi, that led, among other things, to the reopening of two Romanesque windows in the apse, the widening of the vestry, the addition of the bell tower with clock and of the neoclassical portico in the façade. The restoration was the occasion for which several other interesting features useful for reconstructing the history of the building were found, as the decoration of the lower part of the aps wall with animals (a fish, a rooster and a snake) and plant motifs (corrisponding to the first phase construction), the frescoes on the left wall (XIV-XV century) and the original inscription of Marcellinus.
The frescoes preserved on the left inner wall are of various different epochs: a Madonna of the milk, a Crucifixion of the fourteenth century attributed to Giovanni da Milano, a Saint Dorotea of the seventeenth century.
Curious, finally, the door, equipped with a grate.
Categories: Places of historical value of artistic value
Via Sant'Eusebio, 15, Cinisello Balsamo MI |
Further pictures of Church of Sant'Eusebio in the section Photography |