The church of Santi Martino e Rosa, San Martino to the people of Conegliano, stands in the square that bears its name, with its façade turned towards the river Monticano. It is a sacred place of ancient origin, already present in the first half of the fourteenth century and tied to a monastery; the Dominican friars rebuilt it between 1674 and 1730, giving it the appearance it still has. Napoleon had the convent closed in 1806. During the bombings of the Great War the church was hit in many parts, and the parish had to renovate it entirely. Since 1921 it has been run by the Josephites of Murialdo.
What to see
The gabled façade has remained rough, of brick, entirely unadorned: in the early twentieth century the architect Vincenzo Rinaldo designed a new one, which was never built. It has only two openings, the round-arched portal in a plain stone frame and, high up, a large half-moon window divided into three. At the sides are massive buttresses; the bell tower, not tall, stands on the north side, to the left of the apse.
Inside, a single nave and six side chapels. On the raised presbytery is the most precious work, the Adoration of the Shepherds by Francesco da Milano: the Madonna and St Joseph bending over the Child, a shepherd playing the flute, and in the background a landscape of hills with a walled town, in the light of sunset. In the choir follow the Last Supper by Sante Peranda, of 1615, and the Saints Sebastian, Roch and Barbara by Ludovico Pozzoserrato, of 1590. Along the nave is an eighteenth-century wooden pulpit, carved with bas-reliefs by an artist from the circle of Andrea Brustolon.
Visiting
Opening and Mass times should be checked with the parish. The organ, built by De Lorenzi in 1862, was restored in 2010.
Our editors' tip
The two-storey building beside the church, along the Monticano, is what remains of the Dominican convent: for a long time it was the Marras barracks of the Alpini, and inside it keeps the cloister. In its courtyard, entered from Piazza San Martino, there is a small Museum of the Alpini looked after by the local section; from there starts the footbridge that follows the river to the Ponte della Madonna.
