13. San Salvatore Our Savior’S
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13. San Salvatore Our Savior’s espite its historic and artistic importance San Salvatore can Dtoo easily be bypassed though it is still one of the most active churches in town. With its central location, just around the corner from San Michele, but free from the constant flow of tourists into that church, San Salvatore is the preferred destination for the local faithful. The traditional name of the church is San Salvatore in Mustolio (or Mustiolo), but the derivation seems impossibly obscure, ranging from “the perfumer’s district” to yet another “tanning district” to the “oil district.” The toponym was originally needed to distinguish it from several other San Salvatores in town, but they CHURCHES have all disappeared, so today simply San Salvatore is sufficient. The first document which mentions the church is dated 1009 but it was certainly founded before that, probably by the monastery of the same name which is recorded in the year 800. With the demise of the monastery about 1100, the church became an orphan, and it has ever since led an orphan’s difficult life. During the early 1100s San Salvatore was a source of conflict between the churches of San Frediano and San Michele. At that time the canons of San Frediano were becoming a powerful group. They built a magnificent new church and began acquiring widespread property, in the process alienating not only the officers of other churches but at times the Bishop and even the Pope. At the same time San Salvatore was available and had acquired sufficient wealth to be worth a takeover. It was located between San Frediano and San Michele, but closer to the latter and, therefore, the Canons of San Michele saw themselves as the rightful proprietors. In the traditional method of negotiating such disputes, street fights broke out between the two claimants. Stones were thrown, holy services disrupted. The dispute went on for years. In 1140, his patience at an end, the Pope issued a bull granting the church to the monastery of San Frediano. Popes come and go, but grudges live on. The dispute drew the censure of successive popes, until it was finally settled in favor of San 109 churches Frediano, which had established firm ties at the Vatican; the prior of San Frediano would soon after be appointed a Cardinal. Surprisingly, it was during this dispute that the church was rebuilt, being finished by about 1180, the date of the lintel over the side door. Most likely it was the wealth of San Frediano which paid for the construction, establishing its claim. (And yet the name Rolando on Biduino’s lintel may be that of a prior of San Michele in 1167.) By the later 1300s the church seems to have fallen into such disrepair that it required a complete makeover. A papal bull of 1410 recounts that Simone Boccella, finding the church more like a hovel, had paid to repair it and “make it like a new church.” It also recounts that he took such interest in it because his ancestors had built it. Simone Boccella was one of the most successful mer- chants of the time, having lent money for Lucca to buy its freedom in 1369. In 1370 he represented Lucca in an embassy to the Pope in Avignon. In 1780 the Monastery of San Frediano was suppressed and San Salvatore was once again orphaned to a succession of squabbling directors, leading one priest to say that “this parish is small, but the most troublesome which one could find.” Finally the church was closed and its parishioners assigned to San Michele, which at last won a long awaited victory over San Frediano. In 1818 the archbishop granted the church to the Fraternity of Christian Charity, which began restoration work. This fraternal order later merged with the Confraternita di Misericordia (Fraternity of Mercy) and assumed dominion over the church, which it retains to the present. They have proven worthy guardians. It is their ambulances you see garaged nearby. San Salvatore is finally a peaceful parish, except when the sirens go off, as they frequently do. The ambulance service is provided free of charge. 1180 is the generally accepted date for completion of the medieval church, but as is so often the case the question of exactly how old certain parts are is frustratingly elusive. Biduino’s lintel may be datable about 1180 but was it inserted into an already existing wall? There is a seam along the right wall which suggests a lengthening of the church at one time, but when? Just how much was rebuilt in the 1100s and how much was reused, or remained, from the preceding church? In the mid-1300s the church was 110 13. san salvatore remade “like new.” Was this simply cosmetic work or were structural changes made? How much of the original church’s foundation was used, how much of the doors, or walls? We do know that the upper part of the facade, the row of hanging arches under the eaves and the stucco, date from the later 1800s. The arches over the doors, with alternating bands of white and green marble (commonly categorized, rather unfairly to Lucca, as Pistoian) are typical of the 1100s. The doorways—with their wide white jambs and heavy architraves surmounted by arches in which the inside and outside curves do not share the same radius point—are duplicated throughout the city in churches of the 1100s and 1200s. San Salvatore lacks a proper bell tower, but the close- by tower which originally housed local nobility, was pressed into service. Today it serves as a nest for television antennae. CHURCHES The Lintels The most precious possessions of the church are the two decorated lintels. Despite being exposed to the elements for more than 800 years they are in remarkably good condition, a testament to the hardness of the stone the sculptors worked. (Compare the decayed state of the stone embellishments on the palazzi of the 1500s and 1600s.) More remarkable is that they reside in situ, and have never been rescued by a museum. They are part of a very small body of work, the narrative lintel, which is the earliest expression of Tuscan art. There are only nine existing examples of this art form in western Tuscany. San Salvatore has two of them. No admission charge. Both lintels depict episodes from the life of Saint Nicholas. Nicholas has no other known relationship with the church, but he was one of the most popular saints of the 1100s. Saint Nicholas Saint Nicholas was the legendary bishop of Myra in Asia Minor, martyred under Diocletion in the 200s. He begins to appear in the west in the 800s and after 972 his cult spread into Germany when the Emperor married a Greek princess. His popularity exploded after 1087 when the Normans rescued his relics, re-interred them 111 churches in Bari, and built a basilica which remains a popular pilgrimage site today. By about 1200 there were nearly 200 churches dedicated to him throughout Italy. (There are nearly 400 in England.) His popularity among the Lucchesi is understandable: he is the patron of merchants and sailors. His rescue of a son from a foreign land must have made him frequently invoked by Lucchesi parents whose sons went abroad in trade. These invocations probably took place in San Salvatore. It is known that plays about St. Nicholas were performed in Lucca at least until the 1500s. In the middle ages the saint was equally popular with the Pisans; by 1192 its merchants had dedicated a church to him in Constantinople. The St. Nicholas story is best known from the Golden Legend, written about 1260. Its author, Jacobus de Voragine, was born near Genoa. Side Door The lintel over the side door is particularly valuable, because it is signed biduino me fecit hoc (I, Biduino, made this). It can be dated to approximately 1180. (It is curious that the fi nal word of this phrase did not fi t on the tub and so is scrunched up in the background beside it; a surprising lack of planning for such an accomplished sculptor.) Its subject is The Bath of Saint Nicholas. The incident is recounted in the Golden Legend: “While the infant was being bathed on the fi rst day of his life, he stood straight up in the tub.” In the sculpture the wide-eyed and oversized newborn saint stands up while being washed by two women. Biduino has placed his signature in the most conspicuous place of the work, on the front of the tub, sharing equal billing, as it were, with the saint. In the background is inscribed, almost as an afterthought, “s. nickolaus”. The scene is symmetrically framed by columned buildings with domes and turrets. The fi gures in the upper turrets look toward and hail the saint; the one on the far left holds a cross, on the far right, a 112 13. san salvatore book. Under the left dome a man apparently swings an incense burner. On the right are two old men leaning on staffs, and a rampant boar and lion face each other. The domed buildings are unusual and are probably meant to suggest the Oriental architecture of Saint Nicholas’ birthplace in Asia Minor. Front door The elaborate lintel over the right front door is not signed but it almost certainly dates to the same period, about 1180, and is commonly assigned to the “circle of Biduino.” It tells the Story of CHURCHES the Son of Getron, another episode from the Golden Legend. Adeodatus (“god-given”) was the son of Getron.