SAN NICOLA’S CHURCH

The small church of San Nicola was located along the Via San Francesco, outside the ancient historic city center. It is presumable, based on what Gavini observed, that the church itself should be very insignificant e certainly much of the artistic interest in the building it was linked to the two splendid portals of the Marsican school of the XIII century.

These, probably coming from an unknown older and higher-ranking building, characterized by a splendid decoration.

It would seem that the two beautiful portals were set in a less worthy building.

It was, to judge by the photographic documentation of the walls built with limestone of various sizes, sparsely linked, able to offer very little resistance to a seismic shaking like that of 1915.

 

As regards St. Nicholas, we learn that the Superintendent Antonio Muñoz had done so the clearing of the rubble close to the remains of the major portal.

In February it proceeded to the entire recovery of the portals thanks to sent workers by the Superintendency. All the pieces recovered were transported “to a safe place”.

The scarce wall remains, as was the practice of the time for buildings that were considered slightly less architectural and stylistic value, were demolished and there is no trace of San Nicola’s church in the place where it stood.

Today, after a long time limited period visibility, the portal, albeit devoid of one of the precious architraves, returns to the surface in one permanent exhibition. This portal is kept in the Louvre’s Museum in Paris.

Maybe following theft occurred during the second World War – back to the surface in one permanent exhibition, able to enhance properly forms and ornaments and to convey the importance to visitors that these remains have as witnesses of a valuable part of the Avezzano pre-1915.