San Paolo inter vineas, Spoleto, Romanesque church building in Spoleto, Italy.
San Paolo inter vineas is a late-Romanesque church outside Spoleto's walls, near viale Matteotti. Its facade, simpler than those of San Pietro and San Ponziano, keeps a central rose window and hints at the central nave and two aisles. The plan is nearly rectangular, ending in a single apse; the apse exterior, restored in 2000, may be the oldest part of the complex.
Gregory the Great recorded around 593 a miracle at a church of San Paolo outside Spoleto's walls: an Arian Lombard bishop was struck blind after forcing his way in. A Benedictine nunnery was built beside it around 1000, and Bishop Lupo installed Berta as abbess in 1002. The church was rebuilt in late-Romanesque form and consecrated in 1234 by Pope Gregory IX, who came to Spoleto for the ceremony.
The name "inter vineas" means "among the vineyards", recording that the church stood outside Spoleto's walls in cultivated land. In 1234 Pope Gregory IX came to Spoleto to consecrate the church and gave the monastery the Rule of the Poor Clares. Since 2007 the former convent has housed the city's hotel school and a boarding house for students.
The abbey stands outside Spoleto's walls near viale Matteotti, among former vineyards. Since 2007 the complex has housed the city's hotel school and a boarding school, so the church and cloister are not always open to casual visitors. The cloister is partly unusable but keeps 10th-century arches with alternating columns and square piers.
The main altar consecrated by Pope Gregory IX in 1234 was hidden beneath an 18th-century altar until restorers rediscovered it in 1965. It consists of four stone slabs on a marble base, enclosing a column fragment with a cubic capital hollowed for relics.
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