At the foot of one pillar in the crypt there is a Roman inscription dedicated to Diana: that is the clue behind the idea that Trivento's cathedral grew on top of a pagan temple. The mother church of the diocese carries the names of Saints Nazarius, Celsus and Victor, and a legend has the heads of Nazarius and Celsus brought from Milan in 398 through the intervention of Saint Ambrose.
What to see
The present building is eleventh-century, and a stone slab set into a pillar near the entrance says as much: it records the consecration of 15 May 1076 and the dedication to the two Milanese saints. Baroque and eighteenth-century reworkings followed, and finally the neoclassical façade of 1905, with a framed portal under a tympanum and, higher up, a mosaic held within its own frame; the bell tower rises alongside. Inside there are three naves divided by pillars carrying pointed arches, eighteenth-century stuccowork, the high altar of 1743, the wooden choir and the canvases of the presbytery. On the gallery above the entrance wall stands the pipe organ built in 1700 by Luca D'Onofrio, still intact in its original tonal character.
The part that matters most, though, lies below: the crypt of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, dedicated to Saint Castus, split by reused columns into seven narrow aisles. There are thirteenth-century frescoes, a wooden statue of the enthroned Madonna and a stone relief of the Trinity among angels and dolphins from the same period. Recent excavations have brought the remains of a baptistery back to light.
Our editors' tip
Go down to the crypt before looking at the church above: the compressed proportions, the reused columns and the dolphins of the relief explain the building better than any caption could. Then look for the inscription to Diana at the base of the pillar: it is small, easy to walk straight past, and it is the exact point where the Roman and the Christian history of the town touch.