habitat rupestre.pdf - Società Friulana di Archeologia

S. Bertacchia diaphragm between the adjacent rooms. The hall is smallerand has a stone seat sideways. Finally, the deep apse, a smallerspace and probably raised in the past, is covered by a barrelvault and presents carved crosses in the niche of the bottomwall (fig. 8). Absent any evidence of the altar, certainly notplaced against the wall, and destroyed in the course of time.The rupestrian Church of St. GirolamoThe church, dedicated to St. Girolamo, is located in the eastside of the gravina, located lower compared to the other of thesame slope (fig. 9). It presents a plan with trapezoidal shapethat opens like a fan, with a flat roof. The original access, partlyfilled in with tuff blocks, is aligned with the apse (fig. 11).According to the interpretations of scholars, the church wouldnot have had a narthex, the entrance opening directly on thehall, while the space facing the entrance - the pronaos - wouldhave been turned into a garden. The hypothesis is based on thepresence of the remains of two arcosolia, partially visible onthe outside facade. In the south side of the hall there are twopainted niches: one of them in recent times has been destroyedfor the opening of a further access to connect a contiguousspace. On the northern side there is a paraecclesion consistingof two rooms, separated by round arches, which historiansconsider as a slightly later intervention compared with theexcavation of the church. To the left of the entrance there is adeep tank, protected by a wall, formerly used for collectingand storing water (fig. 12).Raised of a step and separated by a partition of three arches,the bema is constituted by a narrow space oriented North-South provided with several alcoves. The niche contains afresco in the northern wall, only partially survived, portrayingthe Virgin with the Child, while in the opposite one thereis just a trace of a preparatory sinopia. The east wall of thebema is divided into five different areas: at the extremes thereis a pair of altars placed in arcades; another couple of niches isdecorated with tall tables made of stone; at the center there isa small apse, trapezoidal in shape, situated at an higher levelthan the adjacent space (fig. 10). The three walls of the latterone are occupied by niches different in size; on the bottomwall there was a votive painting, now completely lost.Fig. 6 Plan of the rupestrian church of Saint Andrea.Fig. 7 Plan of the rupestrian church of Saint Lucia.Fig. 8 Detail of the niche of the bottom wall with three carved crosses,church of St. LuciaThe rupestrian Church of Jazzo RivoltaThe church is located on the western slope of the gravina. Theoriginal access is now collapsed, causing the lack of the frontview. The organization of the inner space is the result of atleast three phases of excavation, which have determined theplan that we can see today. The narthex – of trapezoidal shape– and the hall with a quadrilateral apse, where a stone altarand a niche with three carved crosses are located, should bethe result of the first phase of excavation; then the westernparaecclesion was completed and finally the two rooms placedof the southern one. The state of preservation of the church isof mediocre condition, mainly due to the erosive action of thewind.The rupestrian Church of St. NicolaThe small rupestrian church dedicated to St. Nicola is situatedon the eastern slope of the gravina.Completely hypogeal and accessible through some steps, itpresents an irregular quadrilateral planimetric layout, next to169volumeRicerca_OK_2012-11-15.indd 169 16/11/2012 15:02:59