NIGEL'S RAMBLES: Merano and its Medieval Art.

We took a short break to stay in Merano, In Alto Adige. There we a couple of places I wanted to see, and we came across another site by chance.

Our first stop was in an unusual round church. The splendid Church of St. George in Scena, is located a few kilometres from Merano. The unusual round structure: Built between the XII and XIII centuries, was originally a fortified chapel inside of the castle of Scena. In 1591 lightning destroyed almost half of the structure, which was then made safe by inserting a massive central support pillar that today characterizes the interior space. It houses a cycle of perfectly restored fourteenth-century frescoes.

The main theme of the artwork shows the harrowing life and death of St. George, a Roman soldier who refused to renounce his Christian faith under Emperor Diocletian in 303 A.D. The anonymous master painter vividly detailed the extreme tortures designed to break his resolve, such as the scene showing him tied to a massive wheel of blades.

Across the cupola a massive Last Judgment scene plays out. This cycle was a common medieval visual guide used to educate the illiterate public, clearly contrasting the rewards of heaven with the terrifying punishments of hell.

Like a lot of sites in Alto Adige, it has weird opening hours. This church is open a couple of times a week on Monday and Friday, between 11.30 and 16.00. Best combined with a good lunch at on of the local restaurants. That is what we did. After a morning visit I filled in some holes in the afternoon.

Chiesa di San Giorgio/ St. Georgenkirche, Scena

We came across the next site by accident. We had eaten in the excellent restaurant just up the road, and we were just wandering around the village to stretch our legs.

The Vecchia Parrocchiale di Scena (Old Parish Church of Schenna), dedicated to the Assumption of Mary. Is a surprising mix of styles. The original church was constructed in the Romanesque style. Traces of this origin remain visible today, including remnants of a Romanesque portal on the western side. In the 16th Century the building was modified and redesigned, with very few architectural changes made since.

After a larger Neo Gothic church was built in the same complex, the old church lost its primary role and was repurposed as a utility space. Between 1975–1981 major structural and artistic restoration work took place, uncovering hidden treasures and returning the building to liturgical use.

The interior is interesting for its mixture of late-Gothic, Baroque, and medieval art.

The Baroque high altar, built around 1730 and modified in 1819, features striking statues of Saint Francis Xavier and Saint John Nepomuk. Additionally, a notable 16th-century late-Gothic altar originally belonging to the nearby St. Martin's Church was moved here for protection.

During the 1975 restorations, beautiful old wall frescoes were uncovered inside the main nave. Even more impressive are the exceptionally well-preserved 14th-century frescoes discovered during the 1980s inside the connected southeastern St. John’s Chapel. These vivid paintings depict scenes from the legends of St. John and St. Pancras, the Wise and Foolish Virgins, the Evangelists, and angel choirs.

Vecchia Parrocchiale di Scena

On our way home we stopped off in Terlano. I wanted to see this church, with its frescoes.

The Parish Church of Santa Maria Assunta (in German Parish Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary), located in Terlano, in Alto Adige, is one of the most important Gothic monuments in the region. Although it does not appear imposing from the outside, it houses an extraordinary artistic gem inside: the largest coordinated cycle of frescoes in a rural church in Tyrol.

The presence of a church is documented even before 1236. Traces of this primitive Romanesque style structure remain in the small side bell tower dating back to the thirteenth century. Its construction was also made possible thanks to the flourishing local industry of silver mining.

In the fourteenth century the original structure was replaced by the current building in the Late Gothic style, characterized by a single nave and a polygonal apse. The choir area constitutes the oldest part of this phase.

The frescoes that cover the interior walls represent the purest and best preserved expression of the "School of Bolzano" (Bolzano School), a group of local artists who, after 1360, reworked the innovations introduced by Giotto and his successors in Northern Italy. The frescoes show a perfect fusion between the linear models of German matrix and the Italian plastic volume.

The Choir is the oldest decorative portion. It houses scenes dedicated to the life of the Virgin Mary and to St. Nicholas (protector of the waters, venerated here by virtue of the frequent flooding of the Adige river). In the Nave, most of the paintings in the main hall are due to the hand of the Bolzano master Hans Stockinger. The decorations on the North side were made in a later period and are now affected by the stylistic canons of the full Renaissance.

During the nineteenth century (around 1880), due to changes in religious taste, the entire cycle was covered by a layer of plaster and white paint. It was only thanks to a long and meticulous restoration campaign conducted between 1950 and 1971 that these medieval masterpieces were completely revealed.

Santa Maria Assunta, Terlano

Santa Maria Assunta

Chiesa di Santa Caterina/ St. Kathrein-Kirche in der Scharte, above Merano, is one of those places that I can immagine going viral on Instagram, A church sits on a hill in a field with the mountains as a backdrop.

Chiesa di Santa Caterina

NIGEL'S RAMBLES

Tuesday, October 20, 2026

Merano and its Medieval Art.

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