The most beautiful religious buildings Italy

It is not a single church but a group of four churches (originally seven) in which twelve Benedictine monks still reside today. First we enter the 11th century church of the Crucifix (Chiesa del Crocifisso). A staircase on the left leads to the Pietà d'Angelo Piòand gives access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (del San Sepolcro), from the same period and containing the tomb of Saint Petronius. Its dome was, until 1804, decorated with frescoes. This is no longer the case today, but the mystical atmosphere still reigns in this church. We then pass into the Courtyard of Pilate (Cortile di Pilato), a regular quadrilateral where the restored facade of the Church of the Holy Trinity is located to the east. In the centre is the "Pilate's basin", a stone basin where Pontius Pilate is said to have washed his hands after Christ's death sentence. This Lombard work is actually dated between 730 and 740. After the Church of the Trinity (della Trinità), a transverse church with five naves dating back to the 13th century, you reach the cloister. From there, you can reach the small museum where some of the paintings are exhibited. Finally, the Basilica of Saints Vitale and Agricola, overlooking the picturesque Piazza Santo Stefano, is the one that has best maintained the characteristics of the Lombard Romanesque style. It is also the oldest in the city. Chapels, crypts, cloisters are linked together in a unique composition, giving off an atmosphere of great serenity.

From Highway 118 to the West, we reach the temple of Zeus also called the Olymperion, a huge sacred building of doric style, (6,430 m ²), glorified by Diodore and Polybel, and built in memory of the victory against the Carthaginians in Himere in 408 BC. This temple is one of the largest that has ever been built in Antiquity. The two cyclopes, once inserted in the middle of the half-columns of the temple as to support the forgiveness, became the symbols of the city. Completely stripped of his sculptures and decorations, the temple of Zeus stood up until the Middle Ages, and gradually, gradually, over the years fell into ruins.

The temple of Junon is situated in a dominant position, isolated on a hillside, at the eastern end of the Valley of Temples. It was built around 460-450 BC in Doric style, its classical architecture now retains 25 intact columns for the pleasure of the curious, amateurs and historians. Comparable to the temple of the Concorde, it originally consisted of 34 columns, 13 on the longest sides and 6 on the shortest sides. Sixteen of its columns have also preserved their capitals. Imagine that its roof was once covered with marble tiles.

Its classical plan consists of an entrance vestibule called pronaos, a central piece, cella, and a posterior vestibule, opisthodome, as tradition desires. Its distinctive feature is the later construction of a gradins in the cella, where red traces witness a fire that historians have associated with the carthaginoises invasions of 406 B.C. and its attribution is uncertain, although it is widely named Junon temple by confusion. In the east you see a great altar once dedicated to sacrifice, as well as a piece of road dug by the wheels of the tanks of the time. Behind the temple, archaeologists also discovered a tank.

After its twin, the temple of La Concorde, it is certainly the best preserved temple of the valley, and its dominant position, 120 meters above the sea on the highest point of the Valley of Temples, makes it all the more impressive!

A neo-classical church with a Déposition Déposition cross deposition.