Church of S. Maria Nova

The evocative Church of S. Maria Nova in Toffia was certainly built on the ruins of an early medieval building – probably a palatium – on which various opinions about its origin, attributed to both the Lombards and the Colonna family, hover; even the fact of being called S. Maria Nova could both recall the existence on site of a pre-existing church, and the need to replace the nearby church of the Madonna di Loreto (S. Maria di Piazza), which has become too small to accommodate the population of castle.

The only certainty is that the first stone of this new church was laid on July 2, 1507, and for this reason it was dedicated to the Visitation of the Virgin to St. Elizabeth, which was celebrated on July 2 before the reform of Paul VI. Unfortunately, this new building was also partially destroyed by a fire, in the night between 31 December 1981 and 1 January 1982, following which most of the frescoes were destroyed, the altarpiece with a Visitation by Vincenzo Manenti (1600-1674), the precious wooden altar of 1600 “with six Doric columns” by that Michelangelo da Toffia who had also built the choir of the Abbey of Farfa, the organ of the seventeenth century, the choir stalls, an antiphonary of 1500 and much more.

The church was reopened for worship in November 1995.

EXTERNAL
On the sparse and severe façade, a double flight of opposing stairs allows access to the entrance portal, surmounted by an architrave with the inscription SOL IVSTITIAE DEVS (Sun God of Justice) and by a tympanum that once contained a fresco of the Virgin with Child and S. Lorenzo; at the apex of the tympanum a small, hardly legible epigraph recalls those who contributed to the installation of the doors: “Elevatio ianuae expensi comitatis Prioribus D.D. Lazzaro Merculino, Andrea Rizzello, Julio Cesare Jacobatio and Petro Paolo quondam Caroli. Anno Domini 1696 “.

Higher up, there is a circular window and two smaller windows on the sides. On the left stands the mighty bell tower which is believed to have been executed on a design by Michelangelo Buonarroti. At the base of the staircase and the bell tower, one of the cladding slabs is a sepulchral epigraph from the Roman era by now illegible, of which the three initial ritual letters are barely distinguished today: D. O. M., that is to say “to God (Jupiter) Great Massimo “. To the right of the church portal, above the entrance to the parish house, the coat of arms of Pius XI depicting an eagle overlooking three balls, posted on ecclesiastical properties after the signing of the Lateran Pacts, is inserted into the wall.

INTERNAL
The layout of the current church dates back to the early sixteenth century and is influenced by Renaissance influences, with bright and soberly animated spaces. The original single nave was flanked, so to speak, by two small aisles marked by arches resting on three dividing pillars, which were necessary to support the roof as ordered in the Pastoral Visit of 1776. The apse of the central nave, preceded by a triumphal arch, is flanked by two smaller side apses, at the ends of the transept which forms the Latin cross of the plant.

On the counter-façade, there is one of the sixteenth-century frescoes saved from the 1981 fire, under which the burnt beam that supported the choir with the organ protrudes. Below, in a niche created in the wall and closed by an artistic railing, there is a valuable 16th-century marble baptismal font. Above the entrance portal is a large seventeenth-century canvas depicting the Madonna and Child in glory, while on the right stands a large wooden crucifix (eighteenth century?) From the Church of the Madonna di Loreto.
In the corners 2 epigraphs recall the restorations carried out: on the left, Cardinal Luigi Bilio, being Pope Leo XIII, with the economic contribution of the state and citizens, restored the church; on the right, the restoration financed by the archpriest Pietro Stella in 1880.

On the sides of the church there are a series of chapels, which bore – before the fire – on the altars the coats of arms of the Gentile families of Toffia who financed the embellishment and maintenance.

Today we find, on the left side:

First chapel: 17th century canvas by an unknown artist, with St. John and St. Paul at the foot of the Virgin with the Child in her arms
Second chapel of the Immaculate Conception: The altarpiece consists of a fragment of an anonymous sixteenth-century fresco, in which two angels place the crown on the head of the Virgin with the Child in her arms. At the bottom right, on a mutilated inscription that is part of the fresco, it seems to be able to read the date 1584.
The left side ends with an apsidal chapel, which has important frescoes: at least two (in the right and left mirrors of the altar) are certainly attributable to Vincenzo Manenti but it is probable that those in the frame of the arch are also his work. or at least some good pupils, also given their precise resemblance to those present in the chapels of the left aisle of the Church of S. Maria di Farfa.
On the right side:

All the contents of the apsidal chapel on the right were lost during the fire. The current altarpiece is the work of contemporary artist Massimo Livadiotti.
Second chapel of St. Stephen the Protomartyr: The altarpiece consists of a delicate fresco by an unknown but valid artist, datable to the early decades of the seventeenth century and depicting St. Stephen lovingly welcomed into the heart of the Holy Family. The work is attributed to Vincenzo Manenti.
First chapel: The sixteenth-century fresco that forms the altarpiece of this altar, features the classic iconography of the Madonna del Rosario; around the fresco the boxes with the joyful, painful and glorious mysteries are painted in gouache and also attributed to Manenti.