Page 23 - SAINT HADRIAN’S CHURCH

La Chiesa di Sant’Adriano

In 1998 the frescos of 1700 dome, which in the late forties
had been covered with plaster, were brought to light.

Within eight circles figures of saints (including St. Nilus
praying opposite Christ on the
cross) have reappeared, together
with the four Evangelists (John,
Luke, Mark and Matthew), the
Shepherds and the Three Kings’
adoration; at the center of the
dome the figure of Christ
Pantocrator stands out.

The two columns at the entrance of the building also draw
attention. The one on the right side consists of three rollers
of African stone, overlaid with a Corinthian capital, while
that on the left, next to the monk’s door, is a porphyry
monolith topped with a clear Byzantine structure capital.
Both the columns may have been brought to St. Hadrian’s
from a Greek-Roman field ruins on the nearby plain of the
old city of Sybaris at an unknown date.

Among the legends that inhabit the story of the venerable
building and help foster the fascinated mystery around the
sacred place, one of them wants that behind the large
cabinet placed in the sacristy there was a hideout linked to
a tunnel that led into the cave, even though the place does
not show any characteristics of natural cavities. Legend,
fantasy or history? Does the tunnel exist or did it exist?
Certainly, apart from the stories that popular imagination
has concocted about its history, probably the hideout was
used to put the monks safe from unwanted incursions.

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