SALERNO

20th January 2016 visit to the Salerno 's Dome

The cathedral of Salerno l is located in the heart of the ancient Salerno. It's dedicated to the Apostle Matthew, patron of the city.

It was built by the Norman Duke Robert Guiscard. It is in the Romanesque style and consists of a four-sided, in the basilica, crypt and the bell tower. The present appearance largely corresponds to the restructuring which took place in the Baroque era, it started after the earthquake of 1688. The exterior of the Romanesque cathedral hosts only the portal with the lintel.

At the entrance we find a porch formed by 28 simple columns, probably taken from old buildings of the city.

On the east side there is the elegant baroque balcony .The main entrance of the church Consists of a Byzantine bronze door made in Constantinople in 1089, sets a medieval marble portal; in the lunette an eleventh-twelfth century mosaic depicting St. Matthew.

At the bottom of the aisle you can see two of the rich mosaic decoration ambos. The right both, grander, only example of medieval art, is of 1180-1194; rectangular in shape, rests on twelve columns with Corinthian capitals and Romanesque. It has two lecterns, the main one is inspired by the myth of Mithras and is supported by white marble eagle. Beside there is a big Easter candelabrum, rich in mosaics illustrating the mystery of salvation. The right aisle in the first chapel has a painting by Francesco Solimena representing San Gennaro; at the end of the aisle is a sarcophagus of the first century A.D. depicting the triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne..In the  apse, known as the Crusades because there they blessed the weapons before the departure of the Crusaders for the Holy Land, there is the tomb of St. Gregory VII and two frescoes of the school of Angelo Solimena. In the apse at the top figures of the Archangel Michael, in the bottom San Matteo and the Saints John and James. The left aisle chapels preserves a painting of the Pentecost, the fourteenth-century wooden statue of the Madonna and the tomb of Queen Margherita of Durres, by Baboccio Piperno. The apse preserves a decoration representig the Baptism of Jesus recovered from a Lombard church demolished for the construction of the Cathedral.