In Agnone they call it the duomo, though it has never been a cathedral. The church of Sant'Emidio marks the entrance to the old town, in Largo Micca, where Corso Vittorio Emanuele arrives; it was built outside the walls and later taken inside the circuit of Porta Maggiore, a gate that no longer exists. The first records date from 1096 and come with a harsh detail: the hamlet of the "Civitelle" was pulled down to build it.
The dedication to Sant'Emidio, bishop of Ascoli and protector against earthquakes, has suggested a foundation wanted by merchants from Ascoli Piceno: a widely held theory, not a certainty. The earthquakes, on the other hand, are certain. By the thirteenth century the church had gained a second, smaller nave, and so it stayed until the tremors of the eighteenth century and above all the one of 1805, which forced repairs, internal changes and the blocking of the Gothic side windows, replaced by wider openings.
What to see
The fourteenth-century front is the main event, and it carries an attribution case that is still open. The great Gothic portal, an oculus above it and, at the top, a small niche with the votive statuette of the saint, shows splayed jambs with twisted colonnettes, herringbone patterns and pierced diamond points, acanthus-palmette capitals and a rampant lion resting on a corbel carved as a telamon's head. These are the ways of Francesco Petrini, the sculptor from Lanciano who signed the portals of Santa Maria Maggiore and Sant'Agostino and, in Molise, the front of Larino cathedral; because of the weaker Agnus Dei under the keystone of the gable, some have proposed Rogerio da Fregene instead, active in Vasto. The rose window is huge and repeats the pierced diamond point of the Lanciano workshops; the twisted colonnettes that held its frame are lost. Beside the portal, a stational cross stands on an octagonal column whose base is an upturned fourteenth-century capital.
Inside there are two naves, the main one and the Baroque side aisle, joined by a large pointed Angevin arch. The side altars are carved and gilded wooden tabernacles of Marche workmanship; the sculpture carries well-known names, from Giovanni Duprè and his daughter Amalia to Giulio Monteverde, and includes a fifteenth-century statue of Sant'Emidio holding a model of Agnone on his palm.
Our editors' tip
From the Baroque aisle you step into the Biblioteca Emidiana, founded in 1897: its first core was the 700 volumes given by a local priest, and rare works were added later. One last note: in 1995 John Paul II stopped in this church, in Agnone for the Marinelli bell foundry.