Description
Palazzo San Giorgio is Campobasso's town hall, an elegant 19th-century building with a wide portico and a clock on top. It hides a secret: inside its walls is an entire church, almost invisible from outside.
The facade has three floors above the portico of round arches on large square pillars. In the middle of the first floor juts out a small balcony with marble balusters, held up by two Ionic columns.
At the top, the face of the clock bears the word "MUNICIPIO". Every quarter of an hour its little bells play a short tune: at each quarter it is only hinted at, at the half hour it grows longer, and you hear it in full only on the hour.
Outside the building stands an imposing statue of Saint George on horseback slaying the dragon: the saint is the city's patron, and the statue once stood inside the town hall.
The back looks onto the Villa dei Cannoni park, with two three-story glass wings, added to enlarge the interior, that narrow as they go down toward the ground floor.
Here in 1290 Pietro da Morrone, the future Pope Celestine V, founded the monastery of Santa Maria della Libera. The earthquake of July 26, 1805 badly damaged it, and in 1811 it collapsed entirely: the friars, left without funds after the suppression of the religious orders, could not save it.
The city turned the site into a public garden and in 1824 rebuilt the church of Santa Maria della Libera. Then the town hall rose beside it and swallowed it completely: the church only reopened for worship in 1878.
Inside is kept a 13th-century statue in Byzantine style, the Libera. It survived the 1805 earthquake, by a miracle, people said, and was kept in the Capuchin convent throughout the rebuilding.
What remains of the old garden is the Villa dei Cannoni park, right behind the building.
The facade has three floors above the portico of round arches on large square pillars. In the middle of the first floor juts out a small balcony with marble balusters, held up by two Ionic columns.
At the top, the face of the clock bears the word "MUNICIPIO". Every quarter of an hour its little bells play a short tune: at each quarter it is only hinted at, at the half hour it grows longer, and you hear it in full only on the hour.
Outside the building stands an imposing statue of Saint George on horseback slaying the dragon: the saint is the city's patron, and the statue once stood inside the town hall.
The back looks onto the Villa dei Cannoni park, with two three-story glass wings, added to enlarge the interior, that narrow as they go down toward the ground floor.
Here in 1290 Pietro da Morrone, the future Pope Celestine V, founded the monastery of Santa Maria della Libera. The earthquake of July 26, 1805 badly damaged it, and in 1811 it collapsed entirely: the friars, left without funds after the suppression of the religious orders, could not save it.
The city turned the site into a public garden and in 1824 rebuilt the church of Santa Maria della Libera. Then the town hall rose beside it and swallowed it completely: the church only reopened for worship in 1878.
Inside is kept a 13th-century statue in Byzantine style, the Libera. It survived the 1805 earthquake, by a miracle, people said, and was kept in the Capuchin convent throughout the rebuilding.
What remains of the old garden is the Villa dei Cannoni park, right behind the building.