Church of St. Francis, Treviso, Veneto, Italy, Europe
In the early 13th century the municipality of Treviso issued statutes that allowed mendicant orders to settle within the walls. A small group of minor friars, sent by the same Francis of Assisi, came to Treviso in 1216, and took up residence north-east of the city center, in the area beyond the Cagnan Grande. In this area, which the tradition has granted them from the Da Camino, the Franciscans built a simple convent and a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The community soon became numerous and in 1231 the church and the convent began to be built. The municipality gave a sum of one thousand lire for the works. In 1270 the constructions were completed. An important role in the endowment of the convent was given by Gherardo da Camino, perhaps due to an act of reparation for the killing of Giacomo Casale, bishop of Feltre and Friar Minor, in 1298. The major families of Treviso had their own chapel in this church: in addition to the grandiose ark of the da Camino, one can remember the disappeared tombs of the Bonaparte, the Brandolini, the Coderta, the Rovèr, the Rinaldi, the Sugana, and the Calandri. Being a regular church, in 1797 the church was occupied by the French and the minor conventual friars were expelled. In 1806 the convent was suppressed by the laws of the Kingdom of Italy. The church was thus used for military purposes and as a stable, while the two large cloisters were demolished. Only in 1928, after a restoration, it was reopened. The church, owned by the Municipality of Treviso, was again entrusted to the pastoral animation of the Conventual Franciscan friars. It is not a parish church, being included in the territory of Santa Maria Maddalena. To a Franciscan, between Benvenuto delle Celle, according to the tradition also author of the project for the church of San Nicolò, is perhaps the design of the church. The grandeur of the Dominican temple is opposed by the simple and severe structure, of transition between the Romanesque and early Gothic, of St. Francis. The gabled façade, as well as the two sides, is decorated with pilasters crowned by small arches, and has a lunette above the portal with a Byzantine fresco. The church has a Latin cross plan, with a single, large nave covered by a wooden ship-like ceiling. On the right there is a small nave consisting of the union of five side chapels, covered by masonry cross vaults that form five bays. In the lunette above the portal there is a Byzantine fresco, attributed to Marco Veneziano (1235). Inside, on the left wall, there is a gigantic fresco depicting St. Christopher, a Romanesque-Byzantine work of the late thirteenth century. On the sails of the vault of the main chapel of the apse are the Four Evangelists, the Stigmata of St. Francis, a Madonna with Child and Adam, of the fourteenth-century Venetian-Emilian school, probably the work of a pupil of Tommaso da Modena. In the first chapel on the left (Giacomelli chapel) there is a work by Tommaso da Modena, the fresco of the Madonna and Child with seven saints (1350), a true artistic masterpiece of the church and testimony to the refined Gothic style of the Emilian master then active in city. Three of the saints, however, were later added by pupils of Thomas. In the second chapel on the left there is a fresco by a pupil of Tommaso da Modena, the Master of Feltre: Madonna and four saints, from 1351.