New discoveries and excavations: here is the early Christian site of San Giorgio

The area inside the Addolorata church has been reopened. The remains of a basilica dating back to the 4th-5th century have been found

SAN GIORGIO DI NOGARO. The early Christian archaeological site of the 4th century, of the church of San Giorgio Martire, affectionately called the church of the Madonna for the presence of the statue of the seven pains, returns to the community’s heritage.

Since Saturday, the sacred place has been returned to the sangiorgini with a ceremony full of emotions and memories of that idea born by some young students in the early Eighties, which led to the excavations in 1988 and to the discovery of that exceptional discovery of the early Christian basilica, and the mosaic fragment that highlighted the importance of the church of Villa San Giorgio in that period, as stated by the architect Claudia Carraro.

Thanks to a special crystal, a modern ventilation system, and adequate lighting, the site has been enhanced, that site that has led to redoing the history of the territory.

Also available to visitors is a video on the evolution of the church that can be viewed on a touch panel inside, a video that traces the history of the excavation up to the last realization, a leaflet on the history of San Giorgio and the wealth of works of art found in the church, a monograph on the church that explores some aspects such as the importance of the seventeenth-century canvases and the statue of the Madonna of the Seven Sorrows venerated by the Sangiorgina community because it was invoked to put an end to the plague of 1759.

As remembered by Alberto Vicenzino, who together with Curzio Conti (who later became the first president of the association Ad Undecimum, born following the discovery and today continues in the enhancement of the territory) and the archaeologist Massimo Lavarone, the emotion is the first taste of excavations started in 1986 and then materialized in 1988 with the researcher of the Superintendency Paola Lopreato, when the church was being made safe following the damage suffered by the earthquake two years earlier.

It was Lavarone himself who later recalled how from that excavation the early Christian building dating back to the IV-V century was brought to light as well as the three religious buildings that had been built in the following centuries on the same site that houses the current church completed in 1798 .

Lavarone also pointed out that among the finds found there is the famous ring of St. George, a rarity of its kind: two similar ones are kept in the British Museum in London. Present at the ceremony were the mayor Pietro Del Frate and Monsignor Igino Schiff, thanks to whose promptness in asking for contributions from the Region, the intervention was possible.