Description
The paintings in the apse are of the XVII and XVIII centuries, while the painted tiles of the ceiling date back to 1726.
The Chapel of Santa Maria della Cerqua or Quercia of Monteleone di Spoleto is located outside the walls, at the foot of Santa Caterina Monastery. Its foundation is associated to the miracle of the hermit Liberto or Gilberto of Monteleone, who assists in the second XIV century to the sudden growth of an oak tree, after praying to Madonna. The local religious history, however, is merged with the cult of the Madonna della Quercia of Viterbo. The small trapezoid-shaped structure has a single altar with a shrine, in which is painted a Madonna della Quercia of XVIII century. In the shell stands a seventeenth-century painting with the Eternal Father. On the right wall there is another votive panel. The ceiling, made in terracotta tiles, has various symbols (stars, comets, stars, suns, moons, flowers). The date of the installation work (1726) and the names of the families that subsidize the enterprise are written on some tiles. During the restoration work of 1990 are added some inscriptions and schematic drawings. The Chapel of Santa Maria della Cerqua or Quercia is outside the town walls, at the foot of the monastery of Santa Caterina, at the joining point of two ancient roads of access to the country. Its foundation is linked to a miracle that, however, the scholar of the seventeenth century Ludovico Jacobilli, puts in another place, narrating that the venerable hermit Liberto or Gilberto is in the second half of the fourteenth century in the church of Santa Maria del Piano de Equo, in the valley of Ruscio (district of Monteleone di Spoleto), and is travelling to Rescia (other fraction of Monteleone). Tired and flushed, he stops to rest near a tree bearing an image of the Madonna, to whom he turns a prayer. Upon awakening, the staff that he put into the ground, is revived; near a large oak tree has grown and gushed a clear water source. In the report of the pastoral visit of the Bishop Carlo Giacinto Lascaris between 3rd and 10th October 1712 there is written, however, that the Oak Miracle (split from the miracle of the source) has taken place on the slope near the monastery of St. Caterina, where the small church of Madonna della Quercia is set. There is probably a contamination of the local religious history (which recognizes to Liberto the miracle of the revived staff) with the cult of the Madonna della Quercia of Viterbo. This fusion is probably favored by the geographical location of Monteleone situated on the path of the transhumance (traveled by shepherds to lead the sheep to grazing between the Umbria-Marche Apennines and the Maremma), along which numerous shrines are erected dedicated to the worship of Viterbo. Proofs of the link between the Madonna of Viterbo and Monteleone are attested in the documentary sources (in 1518 a merchant of Monteleone is in relationship with the friars of the Oak, while in 1576 a bequest is donated for devotion by a citizen of Monteleone to the same sanctuary) and in the iconographic evidence (in the late XV century in the Church of St Francis three votive paintings with the iconography of the bust of the Madonna and the Child, identified by an inscription as "Madonna della Cerqua"). At the crossroads at the foot of the Clarisse community there is the small trapezoidal structure, which preserves decorations of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Behind the altar there is a painted niche and in the hemicycle of the overlying cap there is a break in the clouds showing angelic figures around the Eternal Father, who blesses with his right hand and has in his left hand a globe. These paintings are related to the XVII century and have a Classical taste. Instead, the depiction of the bust of the Virgin and Child in the branches of an oak tree, painted inside a niche, is of the eighteenth century. On the right wall of the room there is a painting with the Madonna della Quercia and a structure that occupies a good part of the visual field. The paintings are restored between 2001 and 2002. The gabled roof has a wooden frame that supports the terracotta tiles bearing various symbols (stars, comets, suns, moons, flowers), whose design, originally probably regular, has been altered in the operation of replacement during a restoration. On some tiles there are written the date of implementation, in Roman and Arabic numbers ( "A.D. MDCCXXVI" and "1726"), and the names of the families who subsidize the enterprise ("De Gentilibus", "De Renziis", "Valentinus", with the initials "P.T."). During the restoration works carried in 1990, on a tile column of the roof there are some inscriptions ("WITH THE OFFERS OF DEVOUTS"; "MADE BY ENZO (...)"; "WORKERS SALAMANDRA SANTE, SALVATORE GIOVANNI 06.03.1990"; "RESTORATION OF 1990"), and a schematic drawing, already faded, with the Madonna between a cross and trees. Not far away there is a San Liberto sketched with a stick under a large oak tree. Until the Second World War the walls of the chapel (now empty) are enriched with numerous votive offerings, testimony of the persistent devotion of the faithful to this place.