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The duomo of San Marco was
erected around the mid-13th
century in Romanesque-Gothic
style which can still be
appreciated especially in the apse,
tiburio and slender campanile,
finished in 1347 (the spire, setting
the overall height at 70 m, was
added in the 1600s). Interventions on the
façade were limited to the addition, in 1511,
of the portal by G.A. Pilacorte, combining a
Cristo Passo in the lunette with reliefs on
doorposts (zodiac signs), lintel and plinths
(scene from the Creation). It was only in the
1800s that a project to complete the façade
was started, though it also was left
unfinished, as shown by the Neoclassical
columns floating on the plaster wall. The
single-nave interior shows 16th-century side
chapels, though the present structure is the
result of 18th-century enlargement works,
when the nave was raised and the overall
decorative pattern was adjusted to the taste
of the time, finding its triumph in the
stuccoed Chapel of All Saints. The oldest
works to be found in the Duomo are
fragments
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of frescoes on the right wall,
showing figures of Saints (14th-century),
although the overall style is basically
Renaissance, beginning from the frescoes in
the chapel of SS. Peter and Paul (Cappella
Ricchieri), to the right of the cross plan,
datable to 1414-1420 ca., and including
Symbols of the Evangelists, Saints and
Angels on the ceiling and views of the city on
the walls. If in these paintings a late-Gothic
atmosphere still transpires- probably owing
to the contacts the author might have had
with Gentile da Fabriano in Venice-
the
frescoes in the chapel of San Nicolò
(Doctors of the
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Church on the ceiling and
stories of San Nicolò on the walls, second
half of 15th century) speak a more
prospective and realistic language, closer to
the model of the Cappella Ovetari in the
Church of Eremitani at Padua. The austere
though graceful stone relief work by
Pilacorte, giving volume to both font
(1506) and stoup (1508), and the vigorous
Mantegna-like trait of Gianfrancesco da
Tolmezzo in the Evangelist Saint on the left
pilaster and in the fragmentary though
precious Pentecost in the left apse chapel
(early 16th century), whose graphic
elegance is even more evident if
compared with the Resurrection in the
vestry (1503), are examples of a mature
Renaissance style. It is the work of
Giovanni Antonio de' Sacchis, called
Pordenone, however, that represents
the core of Renaissance
painting, especially
the Virgin of Mercy
on the first altar
to the right,
whose
soft painting
creates an
aerial
landscape,
reminiscent
of
Giorgione,
in the
background,
but acquires
Michelangelo's density of volumes
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in the
powerful St.
Christopher in
the foreground.
Other paintings
by Pordenone
are the
frescoes with
San Rocco and
Sant'Erasmo
(second
decade of the 16th century) on the right
pilaster, the panels with scenes from the
Baptist's life on the font (the originals are
kept in the adjoining Civic Museum of
Art), and the stormy, unfinished St.
Mark consecrating Sant'Ermacora
bishop of Aquileia in the presence
of archdeacon Fortunato and Saints
George, Jerome, Sebastian and John
the Baptist (1533-1535 ca.).
Pordenone's influence in the 16th
century is clear in the Cappella
Mantica, frescoed by Calderari
in 1554-1555, still preserving a
Flight to Egypt altarpiece by
P. Amalteo (1565). The two oil
paintings by M. Fogolino (before
1523) and D. Tintoretto (1594-
1595) are 16th century, too, while
the Triumph of the Virgin among
S. Agostino and Santa
Monicaby P. Vecchia
is dated 1627.
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The landscape surrounding
Pordenone is lively and varied,
changing from the ups and downs of
the Pedemontana hills and the green
area of Polcenigo to the expanse
of cultivated and clay-coloured fields
of the southern area.
The geographic, historical
and cultural
development of
the whole territory
has
been
marked by go
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