Santa Lucia, Romanesque church in Gaeta, Italy

Santa Lucia is a deconsecrated church on via Ladislao in Gaeta's historic centre, now the auditorium Santa Lucia. Rebuilt in the 11th century on an earlier high-medieval place of worship, it has a three-nave basilical plan with columns and arches, a wooden truss ceiling and a square bell tower.

A place of worship stood here between the 8th and 9th centuries, probably dedicated to the Santissimo Salvatore and documented in the Codex diplomaticus cajetanus in 887. In the 11th century the church was rebuilt on the model of the abbey of Montecassino, with its axis rotated 90 degrees and a bell tower added. It took the name Santa Maria in Pensulis, first attested in 1218, and from 1387 to 1399 served as palatine chapel for King Ladislaus of Durazzo.

The name Santa Maria in Pensulis, documented from 1218, refers to the hanging gardens that once stood in this part of Gaeta. The parish was counted among the city's oldest in a 1591 report by bishop Alfonso Laso Sedeño, and its parish priest had the right to wear a mitre, a custom abandoned in the 19th century. Deconsecrated in 1972, the former church now serves as the Santa Lucia concert hall.

The building is no longer a church: deconsecrated in 1972, it belongs to the municipality of Gaeta and is used as the Santa Lucia concert hall. It stands at via Ladislao 27 in the historic centre, where the street follows the line of the ancient decumanus. Look for the blocked twin windows and the opus spicatum masonry in the lower facade.

The church was deconsecrated in 1972 and is now the Santa Lucia auditorium, a concert hall owned by the municipality of Gaeta. Its left aisle wall still holds the blocked doorway and two small windows of the earlier high-medieval church, whose axis ran at right angles to today's.