The abbey of San Giovanni in Venere

Built where a temple of Venus once stood, it looks out to sea from 107 metres. At the summer solstice the sun comes in through the doorway and lights the crypt.

The story

The site and the landscape

The abbey stands in the municipality of Fossacesia, on a hill facing the Adriatic 107 metres above sea level, in a commanding position over the whole Trabocchi coast, surrounded by olive groves and vineyards.

The landscape was once different: the river Sangro turned the whole area to marsh and the sea covered ground that is farmed today, so much so that in Roman times there was a harbour below and the Sangro was navigable for several kilometres inland. In the Middle Ages, from this position, it was also possible to control the drove road and the river crossing.

Origins and growth

The name “in Venere” seems to come from the pagan temple that stood where the basilica now is in the 1st century BC, dedicated to the goddess Venus Conciliatrix. Christian worship replaced the pagan one presumably after the 8th century: a small monastic cell is recorded between the 8th and the 10th century. With the arrival of the Benedictines the abbey proper was founded in 1015 by Trasmondo II, count of Teate, the ancient Chieti.

The monastic complex is made up of a basilica and its monastery, both built between the 11th and the 13th century in place of the smaller monastery that stood there before. What the basilica looks like today is the result of work carried out between 1165 and 1230 in two phases: the first under abbot Oderisio II, the second between 1225 and 1230 under Rainaldo.

Over the centuries the abbey has had a troubled history: from the presence of the Benedictines around the year 1000 to the outbreak of the Second World War, when Fossacesia was heavily bombed, only to recover completely afterwards.

The Portal of the Moon

On the outside, the wall faces are of sandstone blocks in the lower part and brick in the upper. The even surface is set off by the so-called Portal of the Moon, named thus because at the summer solstice it is touched by the light of the setting sun, which lights up the presbytery and the crypt. The lunette above the doorway shows Christ enthroned between Saint John the Baptist and Saint Benedict of Norcia, while the slabs either side of the entrance are carved with the story of Saint John the Baptist.

Inside, the abbey is bare, without decoration: a rectangular plan and three aisles marked out by arches on piers, ending in three apses decorated on the outside with rich motifs of clearly Norman derivation, closely recalling the decoration of the apse of Monreale cathedral, in Sicily.

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