The Sexton’s Tale

I was looking for a very small, very old medieval church called the Chiesa di San Giovanni in Villa, or, in German, Sankt Johann im Dorf.  Both names mean Saint John in the Village.  The Village, it seems, was the earliest of Bolzano’s settlements. The church should have been easy to find, because Bolzano was repeatedly bombed during WWII, and the once-medieval streets of the Village are lined with modern construction; so a thousand-year-old building should be as obvious as a Model-T in a Ferrari showroom.  I’d spotted the craggy Dolomites between the buildings, but no churches.  A diminutive, grey-haired lady approached. “Mi scusi, signora,” I said, flashing my best non-threatening smile, “cerco chiesa San Giovanni – e vicino?”  She replied in rapid Italian that it was “… two steps away, it’s almost always closed, but come – we will see, perhaps he will be there …”  She turned quickly into a narrow alley, and in thirty strides I was on cobblestones, and in the middle ages.

The church is a sturdy Romanesque stone building with a handsome campanile.  Inside, a pointed vault arched over a single nave.  A grey-haired, broad-shouldered man rose from the table where he’d been sitting.  My guide gestured proudly toward him.  “Eccolo!” she said, and was gone.

Counting the pews, I reckoned the building might seat eighty or ninety people.  Frescoes covered the triumphal arch framing the apse, but there were multiple layers of plaster, so that on one side an angel of the Annunciation looked expectantly across, while on the other side Mary appeared to be hiding under a later fresco. Christ in Majesty floated in his mandorla in the vault of the apse, surrounded by symbols of the evangelists: angel, lion, ox, and eagle. Vividly painted images covered the upper half of the nave walls, in a style that teased my memory, like an episode of déjà vu; but the lower half was nearly bare white plaster, with faint suggestions of images, like ghosts.  I suddenly became aware that the grey-haired man – I supposed he was the sexton – was standing next to me. “It’s an old church,” he said.  “Would you like to hear about it?”  Of course I said yes.

We stood near the apse as he explained how Christianity spread from the north into the Tyrol in the 11th century, carried on waves of monasticism, and how this church had been the centre of Christian life in Bozen (the German name for Bolzano) until the city cathedral was completed in the late 12th century.  When the original wooden ceiling was replaced by vaulting in the 14th century, and the church got its campanile, the interior was frescoed in a new style by two painters now called the “Masters of San Giovanni.”

“They were itinerant artists, followers of Giotto,” he explained.  “Alas, the lower walls are damaged – in 1997 the church was flooded by a broken pressure line outside.  The moisture slowly rose through the plaster, draining away the frescoes. Still, you can see that the church honours two St. Johns.  On the right wall of the nave are Biblical scenes of John the Baptist.  On the left are stories of Giovanni Evangelista, John the Evangelist.  Many are taken from the Golden Legend of Jacobus da Voragine.”

Jacobus, I remembered, was a 13th century churchman who wrote colourful biographies of a heavenly host of saints. John the Evangelist’s story is particularly action-packed:  John preaches Christianity in Ephesus, so the Emperor Domitian has him boiled in oil. He survives. Domitian exiles him to Patmos, where he writes the Book of Revelation.  Domitian dies.  John returns to Ephesus, where a faithful follower, Drusiana, has just died.  He prays, and she awakes. “Drusiana, get up and make me dinner,” he says.  After dinner, the High Priest of Ephesus dares him to drink a cup of poison, which has already dispatched two thieves.  John drains the chalice, resurrects the thieves, and converts Priest and thieves alike. 

Many of these episodes are pictured on the wall.  Half are on the upper register in full colour; half are below, on the ghostly white wall.  But, as the sexton told the stories, pointing out here a shadow, there a plaster furrow, I began to see the pictures:  there – that curve is the bottom of the pot! And those wavy lines – they must be the flames!  The images seemed to slowly re-colour the plaster, as if summoned by the sexton’s voice.

On the opposite wall, some in colour, some mere shadows, were the stories of John the Baptist:  Gabriel prophesies his birth, he is born, he matures, he baptises Christ.  I recognized the Banquet of Herod, complete with vengeful Salome, and finally the violent scene as John is beheaded. But just above, and separate, there were some coloured indentations.  As I stared, they slowly resolved into the image of a baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes.  “It’s John’s soul,” the sexton said, “being assumed into heaven.” I wondered how many times his words had resurrected the dead frescoes for some lucky visitor.

We went outside together.  He handed me a card.  “Alfred Pichler,” it said, “Kustos, Church of St. John im Dorf.”  “Yes,” he said, in answer to my questions, “I’ve lived here all my life.  I was a teacher for many years.  That was long ago; I’m eighty-five years old.”  

Above us, pigeons flew in and out of the tower’s belfry.  He followed my gaze. “I really must climb up there soon,” he said, sighing. “The birds leave such a mess on the bells.”

Text © 2020 by Joe Gartman; Photographs © 2020 by Patricia Gartman. First published in Italia! Magazine, Oct/Nov 2020