Saint Benedetto in Gottella

Chiesa di San Benedetto in Gottella Piazza Bernardini, 55100 Lucca LU Italia

The first document in which the church is mentioned, located between the cathedral and the route of the Roman decumano (now Via Santa Croce), is from 894, but the current building is the result of a reconstruction carried out during the 13^th century: in those years the church was rebuilt in brick, reserving the use of stone only for the façade, in sandstone with white limestone strips and a simple portal with a raised arch. The carved decorative elements from the previous church were then walled up in the apse part of the building: these are three fragments of a white limestone pillar with an abstract-geometric decoration made between the 8^th and the 9^th century. The decorative motifs of the relief, not very pronounced and surrounded by flat strips, are cross-shaped disks and heart-shaped branches. Still in the apse, beneath the crowning cornice, ceramic basins can be traced back to the Ligurian production of the 13^th century. The interior of the church, with a single nave with a barrel vault, is the result of a radical restructuring operation carried out in the early 19^th century: in 1822 Stefano Cheli in fact completely canceled the medieval and 17^th century layout (dating back to the time in which the church had become the seat of the confraternity of Sant'Onofrio) and on that occasion the paintings of the high altar (I santi Anna e Gioacchino con Maria bambina) and of the left altar (San Gerolamo and san Joseph); on the right altar there is a canvas with the Madonna in glory between the saints Benedetto and Margherita by Benedetto Brandimarte, a Lucchese painter active between the end of the 16^th century and the beginning of the 17^th century. On the floor of the church we can see a 14^th century earthen tomb of a child perhaps belonging to the Antelminelli family. Since 1817 the church has been the seat of the ancient Confraternity of Legnaioli.