The Wedding Church
San Giovanni in Xenodochio
San Giovanni
Our wedding will be celebrated in the Cividale church of San Giovanni in Xenodochio, located in the square of the same name in the ducal city. We chose it not only because of its beauty, but also because it is perhaps the least known of the various churches in the city. We would therefore like to revive it with our wedding, thus making it occupy a special place in our hearts and letting you all discover it. For the more curious, here are some historical notes below.
The first document where references to the St. Giovanni's complex are found is a diploma from the year 792-edited by Charlemagne-which, listing the goods pertaining to the church of Aquileia, mentions precisely the xenodochio (an early medieval term for charitable hospitality houses for strangers and pilgrims) of St. John's. John the Evangelist, built in Cividale by the Lombard duke Rhoduald in the late 7th century.In that structure it is very likely that pilgrims and the sick continued to be cared for at least throughout the 12th century, before the various city hospitales, later united with the more important one of S. Mary of the Battuti. Next to the xenodochium stood precisely a small church dedicated to St. Giovanni the Evangelist, the "ancestor" therefore of the church currently visible.
The appearance of the church has undergone many substantial changes over the centuries. The first major renovation-which completely revolutionized the structure and facade of the sacred building-occurred between 1540 and 1542, while the official consecration took place only in 1561, in the presence of Luke Byzantium, Bishop of Kotor. An interesting detail concerns the management of the renovation works: the completion of the various intermediate stages of these long renovation works was celebrated by offering the "licovo" to the workers employed, a sort of toast with a snack, the expenses of which we find punctually noted (the Cividalese were precise since the Middle Ages).
Between the late 16th and 17th centuries the church was enriched with decorations and works of the highest value, including two paintings by Veronese and ceiling decoration by Palma il Giovane. Additional works and numerous other works were commissioned throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The busy sequence of works in the church gains even more significance considering that in the parish of St. John in Xenodochio the population was, in the mid-eighteenth century, only 150. The church had substantial income from the sale of wine from its land, the production of which was around 100 conzi of wine, equal to about 70 hectoliters, sold in Cividale. To avoid payment of the duty that in Venetian times burdened products transiting through the city gates, this wine was stored in a specially rented cellar outside the city limits, in Rualis. We can therefore say that the Cividale people, in addition to being very precise in accounting matters, were both wine lovers and very cunning at circumventing the various duties in force at the time (fortunately there was no Guardia di Finanza then).
In 1797 the artistic heritage of the city's churches suffered severe depletion due to confiscation by the French occupying Cividale and even the church of S. John in Xenodochio and the fraternity of S. Rocco, who was based there, had to hand over their silverware. Further renovation work continued during the nineteenth century, while in the twentieth century there is no record of any particular structural changes. The church sustained damage in the 1976 earthquake, which was repaired in the years immediately following the earthquake. Subsequently, the sacred building underwent careful and prolonged conservation work that helped bring to light the beauty of this small but rich (in history and artistic works) little church.
(The source of the historical information given there is the Cividale parish website, in which there is a page devoted precisely to the church of San Giovanni in Xenodochio, edited by Claudio Mattaloni).