| Municipality of Sesto al Reghena
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Pop.: 5,308
Area: 40,53 sq. km, 13 m a.s.l.
Neighbourhoods: Bagnarola, Marignana, Ramuscello,
Banduzzo, Borgo della Siega, Borgo di Sotto, Borgo
Magredo, Borgo Sacile, Braida, Braidacurti, Casette,
Fratticelle, Melmosa, Mure, Venchieredo, Versiola,
Vissignano
Town Hall: Piazza Castello, 1 - 33079 Sesto al Reghena
Phone.: 0434.693911 Fax: 0434.699500
www.comune.sesto-al-reghena.pn.it
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Sesto al Reghena "is" the
Benedictine
Abbey of Santa
Maria in Sylvis,
which is believed
to have been founded by the
Lombard brothers Erfo, Anto
and Marco in the mid-8th
century sheltered in the
meanders of River Reghena
(a single-nave church with
three apses facing east must
already have existed for a
few decades, whose
perimeter still survives south
of the present-day abbey).
Protective walls were
certainly added during the
Hungarian invasions in the
10th century, though the
present-day keep is the result of later
restorations (end of 15th-early 16th cent.) by
Commendatory Abbots G. Michiel and
D. Grimani. Walking through the keep gate,
visitors enter the wide court where the
tower bell (33.6 m tall, 11th-12th cent.) shows
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three high relief arches on each side of the
brickwork façade, corresponding to the three
arches in the belfry. Two other buildings front
on the court, erected in the 12th-13th centuries:
the Chancery to the west and the Abbots'
Residence to the east (today the Town Hall),
the latter showing traces of 16th-17th-century
renovations in the Venetian villa style. As for
the Abbey, the multiple transformations it has
undergone in time is immediately visible,
starting from the entrance to the vestibule,
which has a small loggia on
the left (with profane
paintings inspired to the
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Chanson de Otinel, end of
13th century) and a staircase
on the right (with scenes
from a chivalric fight at the
top- mid 14th cent.- of
probable miniature origin)
leading to the Abbey salon:
on the end wall are
fragments of St. Michael
Archangel (mid-12th cent.).
Gabriel Archangel is instead
portrayed in the lunette of
the portal giving access to
the vestibule together with
St. Benedict and the dragon
(mid-13th cent.). Inside the
vestibule, worshippers are presented with a
map of the afterworld: on the controfacciata
St. Michael Archangel crushes the devil and
weights the souls, while an Angel
accompanies a blessed soul to the gates of
heaven; on the side walls Heaven and Hell are
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developed, the former around the Coronation
of the Virgin- with symmetrical hosts of Saints-
, the latter in the dramatic narration of events.
These frescoes are attributed to Antonio
da Firenze (1503-1506 ca.) who infuses in
them echoes of mid-15th century Tuscan
painting. The south end of the vestibule
gives access to the 'audience room',
graced with a Virgin with Child and nobleman
Pietro Grimani (early 16th cent.), while the
Lapidary is housed in the hall, showing
Roman and medieval findings, though
unfortunately it
has recently been
plundered.
Fragments of 13thcentury
frescoes
decorate the
pilasters and the
small aisle on the
right shows a
remarkable
Triumph of Death
(mid-14th century),
in which three
lidless sepulchres
appear to three
young knights as
the symbols of the
transience of..
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The whole central-eastern area of the
province is deeply marked by the
presence of waterways (which are
torrential streams at their sources
and acquire a more regular
flow further south),
first of all River
Tagliamento,
marking the eastern
border of the province,
whose fords have
determined the
distribution of towns
for centuries, hence the
impressive images of...go
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