Ancona Cathedral

Ancona Cathedral (Italian: Duomo di Ancona, Basilica Cattedrale Metropolitana di San Ciriaco) is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Ancona, central Italy, dedicated to Saint Cyriacus. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Ancona. The building is an example of mixed Romanesque-Byzantine and Gothic elements, and stands on the site of the former acropolis of the Greek city, the Guasco hill which overlooks Ancona and its gulf.

Excavations carried on in 1932 indicated that a Greek temple was on the site as early as the 4rd century BC. A Christian basilica was built on top of it in the 6th century. Between the 10th and 11th centuries the church was enlarged and became a cathedral; it had an entrance facing south-east (where the current Chapel of the Crucifix is). Further enlargement works occurred between the late 12th and the early 13th centuries, to obtain a Greek cross, a typically Byzantine plan, and a new entrance, towards the south-west, resulting in the church now facing the port and the ancient neighborhoods of the city. The old church became the transept of the new one. In 1739, Luigi Vanvitelli designed a monumental pulpit in the left transept to display the seventeenth-century painting of the Virgin, the object of intense popular devotion. In 1883 the basilica underwent a very impressive restoration by Giuseppe Sacconi, author of the project of the Altar of the Fatherland, in Rome. He restored it to its original austere medieval appearance, eliminating the decorations and overlapping plasters, which over the centuries had altered the original appearance of the church. However, he respected Vanvitelli's works for their artistic value. During World War I and again in World War II bombings the church was damaged, and restored each time. The year 2000 marked the millennium of the cathedral's dedication with exhibitions, conferences, and publications.

The edifice is built in white stone from Mount Conero, with apses protruding from the transept's ends and an elevated body, with a dome at the crossing, in correspondence to the nave. All the external surfaces feature a decoration of Lombard bands. The bell tower is in an isolated position. It is mentioned from 1314 and was built above a pre-existing late 13th-century tower. The façade, divided into three section, is preceded by a wide staircase; above it is a 13th-century Romanesque portal formed by a round arch supported by four columns. The anterior ones stand on lions in Veronese red marble, while the rear ones, added later by Luigi Vanvitelli, are on a simple pedestal. The lion on the right fights a basilisk, while the one on the right holds a ram in its paws. Under the arches are four reliefs depicting the symbols of the Evangelists. The portal is attributed to Giorgio da Como (c. 1228), and is in Romanesque-Gothic style, built in Conero white stone from Mount Conero and Veronese red marble. It is decorated by a series of columns holding ogival arches with reliefs of saints' busts, animal figures and vegetable motifs. Above the portal is a large oculus with a Romanesque frame between two single mullioned windows. The dome is one of the most ancient in Italy. It has an ogival shape with a dodecagonal drum, standing on a square base with small decorative arches. It was built over the crossing in the 13th century, and is attributed to Margaritone d'Arezzo (1270). Together with the church of Sant'Antonio at Padua and St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, it was one of the few contemporary examples of domes built in churches, instead than in separate baptisteries. The copper cover was added in the 16th century.

Church data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).