Ancona: San Domenico

San Domenico.

In 1732 Pope Clemens XII (1730-1740) turned the port of Ancona into a free-trade zone and subsequently had it extended. Moreover, he had a road built that connected Ancona to Rome. All these activities were highly beneficial for the Anconitan economy, which is why the inhabitants of the city honoured Clemens with a statue on the Piazza del Plebiscito. The statue is a work by Agostino Cornacchini (1686-1754). Because of the statue the charming square is also called the Piazza del Papa. By far the most conspicuous building adjoining the piazza is the church of San Domenico, if only because of the striking contrast between the uncompleted upper part of the façade and the lower section in white stone from Istria. The church dates from the eighteenth century and is worth a visit for three reasons: statues by Gioacchino Varlè and paintings by Titian and Guercino.

History

Ancona has had a church dedicated to Saint Dominicus (ca. 1170-1221), founder of the Dominican Order, since the thirteenth century. The original church stood just north of the current one and was demolished in 1769. The new San Domenico was designed in 1763 by the Roman architect Carlo Marchionni (1702-1786). It has not become entirely clear to me when the construction of this new church started. According to the information panel outside the church it was in 1765, but according to the information panel inside the church the foundation stone was only laid on 21 November 1771. Fortunately the two panels agree about the year in which the church was completed, i.e. in 1788. On 2 August of that year the church was consecrated and on 4 August the building was opened to the public. In those days 4 August was the feast day of Saint Dominicus. Nowadays it is 8 August.

Interior of the church.

Unfortunately the new San Domenico suffered a lot of misery. In 1798 the French took Ancona and changed the church into a barracks. Part of the interior, of which some elements were still from the old church, were lost in the process. The French occupation was perhaps in part responsible for the fact that the façade was never completed, not even after the building became a church again in 1816. Between 1884 and 1898 the convent next to the church served as the city’s archaeological museum. The church itself was severely damaged during an earthquake in 1930, which explains the rather odd construction of reinforced concrete in the upper part of the façade. As a port city Ancona did not escape from the destructions of World War Two. A bombardment in 1944 damaged the San Domenico, but after several restorations the church reopened for worship in 1948, only to be closed again between 1972 and 1978 because of earthquake damage. With such a sad history I was delighted to find the building open during my visit to Ancona. Although the chapel containing Guercino’s Annunciation was covered in scaffolds, we were able to explore the church at leisure.

Art

Carlo Marchionni’s neoclassical interior is rather boring, but the statues of Dominican saints by Gioacchino Varlè (1734-1806) are fortunately anything but boring. Varlè made ten statues in total, of which two were unfortunately lost during World War Two. These statues – of Thomas Aquinas and Antonino Pierozzi – have now been replaced with modern copies. Of the eight remaining originals, two represent men who are strictly speaking not saints. They are Blessed Pedro González (1190-1246), also known as Telmus or Elmo, and Blessed Augustin Kažotić (Agostino Casotti; 1260-1323), who served as bishop of Lucera. I thought the most interesting statue was that of Saint Hyacinth of Poland (1185-1257). He has been depicted with two attributes: a large statue of the Virgin Mary in his left hand and a ciborium containing the sacred hosts in his right hand. The attributes refer to the siege of Kiev by the Mongols in 1240. During the siege Saint Hyacinth is said to have saved the hosts and the heavy statue from a monastery that he had founded.

Statues of Pedro González and Augustin Kažotić.

Statue of Saint Hyacinth of Poland.

Above the high altar is a large canvas featuring the Crucifixion, painted by Titian (ca. 1488-1576). The Venetian painter left his signature on the foot of the cross: Titianvs F(ecit), “Titian made this”. The painter completed the work in 1558. If we study the canvas, we immediately recognise the crucified Christ and the Virgin Mary and Saint John. The kneeling figure embracing the cross is Saint Dominicus. Visitors will likely notice that the top part of the painting has been truncated. The Crucifixion was in the old San Domenico for a long time and then also in the new one, but in 1884 the work was moved to the municipal pinacoteca and had to be somewhat cut down to size. In 1922 or 1925 – the sources are not in unison – the Crucifixion returned to the church, where it is a colourful highlight in a church otherwise dominated by white.

Crucifixion – Titian.

Annunciation – Guercino.

The other colourful highlight is the Annunciation by Guercino (1591-1666), located in the first chapel on the left. I already mentioned that this chapel was undergoing restorations at the time of my visit. In order to admire the Annunciation we had to crawl past a couple of scaffolds, but then we had an excellent view of this painting from 1662. Even the light in the chapel was functioning properly! The Annunciation comes from the former church of San Francesco ad Alto and was only moved to the San Domenico in 1863. A remarkable fact is that both the Annunciation and Titian’s Crucifixion were stolen in the night of 1 and 2 March 1972. On 14 March the two works were found again. Exactly three months later Ancona was hit by a heavy earthquake. Fortunately there was only material damage, but after the earthquake the church was closed for six years. Was this God’s way to demonstrate his anger about the theft of the artworks?

Sources: Bradt travel guide Umbria & the Marche (2021), p. 226 and the information panels inside and outside the church.