A parchment recently found in the monastery of Montevergine records that by 1295 the church of San Leonardo was already a place of worship, and adds a detail that changes the way you look at it: the inhabitants of the borgo were buried beneath its floor. It is one of the oldest churches in Pescopagano and it stands in the district known as Basso la Terra. In a town almost entirely flattened by the earthquake of 8 September 1694 and struck again on 23 November 1980, a building documented in 1295 is no small thing.
What to see
The high altar, according to what local sources record, held a panel of the Immaculate Conception, a Trinity by an unknown 16th-century painter and a canvas of the Martyrdom of Saints Cosmas and Damian, the same saints to whom the church everyone in town calls dell'Incoronata is dedicated. The past tense matters, because the sources use the past tense: whether those paintings are still there is far from certain, and it is the first question to ask whoever opens the door for you.
The last repair and restoration work dates from 1914; since then a few roof tiles have been put back and nothing more. More than a century of minimal maintenance shows, and it is part of what you come to look at: San Leonardo is not a freshly restored church, it is a church left as it was.
Visiting
Here is the awkward part: San Leonardo opens its doors only a few times a year, namely for the Novena and for the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Anyone who wants to get inside has to time the trip to the nine days before 8 December, or to 8 December itself. For the rest of the year you look at it from outside, walking through the Basso la Terra district, and it is worth asking in the village before setting out.
Our editors' tip
If you do get in, look down first. That floor is not an ordinary floor: the Montevergine parchment says the burials of the borgo's inhabitants lie beneath it, and in a church that since 1914 has seen only the odd tile put back, it may well be the oldest thing you will walk on here. Then, on your way out, take the road towards San Lorenzo: at its start stands the church dedicated to the very Cosmas and Damian of that canvas, the one everybody in town calls dell'Incoronata.