St. John’s Church

It is a vast and harmonious church with three naves, divided by a double row of seven travertine columns.

HISTORY

The religious building was elevated to Royal Chaplaincy in 1281 under Ferdinand I, who settled in the village with his entire family, had the castle, damaged by war, rebuilt and the church enlarged.

Audio-Guide

During the reign of Ladislaus, Pope Boniface IX with a bull of 27-5-1397 established a collegiate church in the place of the simple Royal Chaplaincy in the Church of St. John of Balio, declaring it to be of royal foundation and collation, which later became the Royal Palatine Chapel (at the time of Ferdinand of Aragon, 1460).

The papal bull did not prevent the Curia of Benevento, starting in 1656, from making claims on the church, consecrated by Cardinal Orsini on 13 June 1700, which belonged to it until 1768, when Chaplain Monsignor Naselli, with the approval of the Royal Chamber of St. Clare and confirmation by Charles III of Bourbon, claimed its return to his jurisdiction.
In 1921, the palatine church became a modest parish church with the aggregation of the benefice of the ancient church of St Bartholomew.

ART

It is a vast and harmonious church with three naves, divided by a double row of seven travertine columns.

Audio-Guide

In addition to the high altar, placed in the centre of a vast rectangular presbytery raised more than a metre above the church floor, there are seven other altars in the minor naves, set against heavy mouldings and stucco frames that are in bad harmony with the church’s severe style.

Behind the high altar, in a semicircle that opens in the abdic wall, there is a wooden body, a reminder of the disappeared Paladin Chapter, with a throne surmounted by a baldachin, also made of wood, where the Major Chaplain and the Archbishop sat on Holy Visitation (and not the King). The two long benches leaning against the wall on either side of the presbytery, where men now sit at the recast, were the seats reserved for Provincial, Baronial and Municipal authorities, when Montefusco was the capital of the Province (and when the authorities went to church).
At the beginning of the right nave (of those looking at the high altar) immediately after the entrance, one descends to a small chapel, richly decorated with stucco and eighteenth-century frescoes on the walls, where the Sacred Baptismal Font is located: a large marble bowl supported by a classically crafted fluted column trunk. At the end of the same nave, at the foot of the short flight of steps leading to the presbytery, is the Chapel of the Holy Thorn, separated from the church by an artistic glazed door: in it is a rich marble altar, built by the Municipality of Montefusco in 1886, on which, above the Tabernacle, a reliquary opens in the wall to house the Holy Relic.

The other sites of historical and cultural interest to visit in Montefusco!

St. John’s Church

It is a vast and harmonious church with three naves, divided by a double row of seven travertine columns.

Ruggiero Palace

Giordano Palace

St. Francis Church

St. Giacomo Oratory