HISTORICAL DATA OF THE CHURCH OF CALENDASCO

HISTORICAL DATA 

OF THE CHURCH OF CALENDASCO

FOUNDED BY THE LOMBARDS

 

by Umberto Battini

      historian and popularizer

 

the current church rebuilt in 1734

BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HISTORICAL DATA 

I will say of the church: the parish church of Santa Maria. 

E’ the parchments of the Lombard Diplomatic Code say it was of Lombard foundation. There are some writings in Calendasco and Trevozzo but also in Pavia and also in Milan in Santambross’ and they recall the priest of the time living in Kalendasco. Notaries of 769, 784, 804, 892 etc etc. 

The grandest renovation was carried out in 1734. Then in 1970-71 there was that of Don Federico Peratici for the correct adaptation to Vatican II (I will have more to recall on this matter in due course).

The church before 1734 was “almost square” – fere square says a map of time!
With trusses and wooden floor: not surprising! 

The church is written to be built on a hill and therefore well protected from the humid and unhealthy floods of the Po. It was therefore an elevated place just enough to keep your feet dry, paro paro is still the same today. 

 

the church of Calendasco, external south side

There is also (well hidden but there is) an ancient Romanesque window, between two walls – one fake and one original, it is a remnant with a moustache, a stone document worth gold, a silent witness screaming (like Legato Sancti Conradi!).
Lombard churches often have a square plan, an architecture in use in identical years among the Byzantines who were masters as far as Modena. 

We know the name of two of our old Lombard priests: and here appears Stabelfredus and Orso who above the count were also powerful, with immovable properties in places well beyond the Piacenza land. They officiated in Kalendasco with tithe rights over the local rural poor. 

Tenth to the priest, so much for a change. At the end of the day, they always allowed you a plate of soup in the xenodochium, almost at all hours, you just had to knock. Knock knock knock.

Umberto Battini

historian and popularizer