User:Darklight05/Sandbox

= Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta =

The Cathedral of Teramo was commissioned by Bishop Guido II; its construction began in 1158 and was dictated by the need to rebuild the city that had been destroyed and set on fire, including the ancient cathedral of Sancta Maria Aprutiensis. In the fourteenth century the bishop Nicolò degli Arcioni provided for its expansion; other works took place in the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, when the Cathedral was adapted to Baroque forms which a repair intervention in 1932 fortunately eliminated. The 2007 restorations helped to further restore the original features of the building.

The church shows both Romanesque and Gothic stylistic influences and has the particularity of having two opposite facades. The most spectacular one overlooks piazza Orsini and has the characteristic horizontal crowning of most of the churches of Abruzzo; here the horizontal façade is decorated with battlements and interrupted by the slender tympanum which, starting from the central portal, develops in height for the entire façade and beyond, considerably slimming and enlivening the whole. The imposing splayed portal is decorated by a frieze with mosaics welcoming angel musicians and by twisted columns and small columns, supported by two crouching lions.

The other façade, opposite to the main one, overlooks piazza Martiri della Libertà; it is less striking, with a simpler and more linear style. The access door, located at the end of the staircase, is a false door that serves as an embellishment. Since the year 2000, the bronze work performed by Venanzo Crocetti from Giuliese has been inserted inside the light space of the fake passage, which represents the Annunciation.

The interior of the imposing building is marked by three naves with columns and round arches of considerable momentum. The altar displays a work of great value: a silver frontal made up of thirty-five embossed and chiseled gilded silver plates, depicting episodes from the life of Christ, a fifteenth-century work by the engraver Nicola da Guardiagrele. Another great work is the sixteenth-century Polyptych of Sant'Agostino, also from the fifteenth century,

In addition to the undeniable beauty of the church, the bell tower gives prestige to the cathedral, which is one of the best examples of Lombard Gothic existing in Abruzzo. The lower part was built between 1100 and 1200; in the fourteenth century two floors were added; In the fifteenth century the octagonal spire, whose corners are surmounted by cusps or small towers.