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Church and Convent of San Daniele
San Daniele
Approximately one kilometer from the center of Lonigo stand the church and convent dedicated to the Paduan martyr St. Daniele, built by the Friars Minor on the hill of the same name as early as the 13th century. Over the centuries, the fate of the complex was adverse and alternating; after the plundering by Napoleon’s armies, the buildings of St. Daniele managed to survive the suppression and confiscation of convent properties decreed by the Lombard-Venetian Kingdom only thanks to the will of the people of Lonigo. In the 19th century, the church became a storage facility for agricultural tools and shelter for Austrian troops, while the convent was nearly demolished. The rebirth of St. Daniele came in 1891 with the purchase by the Provincial Minister of the Venetian Province of St. Anthony; philosophy and theology studies flourished again in the convent, and students and priests were hosted. The building, renovated in the last century, features a single rectangular cloister with Gothic arches and marble columns and has, on the west side, a small loggia with trilobed Gothic arches; on the first floor are the cells of the religious. The chapter hall, at the eastern end, is adorned with images of the convent’s most illustrious guests painted by Brother Terenzio Barbone.
The large square in front of the church was built in 1970 to allow parking for the cars of the always numerous faithful; the monument to St. Francis, located in the upper part of the square, a work by the Franciscan S. Bottes, was erected in 1982.
The gabled façade of the church is in exposed stone; along the top of the perimeter runs a decoration with hanging arches. On the left is the nave that encloses the chapels and the larger Antonine Chapel of Suffrage, opened in 1931 and built on the site of the convent’s ancient cemetery. The interior of the church, very linear, has a single nave. The floor, renovated in 1978, has red and white Asiago marble slabs. On the right side is the tomb of Father A. Osmolowski, a Franciscan missionary who stayed in Lonigo. Also noteworthy are the three trilobed, oblong windows, the result of a 1927 renovation: at the base of the wall are the entrances to the confessionals. On the left side are the chapels with Gothic arches, frescoed by Adolfo Mattielli, author of the frescoes throughout the church.
The first chapel is dedicated to St. Anthony, the second to the Immaculate Conception, the third to St. Francis; all feature Gothic-style altars dating back to 1800. The vault, with wooden trusses, has a coffered ceiling decorated by the Lonigo painter Levi at the end of the 19th century, while all the decorative work is by the Veronese painter Arturo Conti. Under the beams, along all the walls, runs a frieze with floral scrolls and roundels depicting Prophets, Apostles, Doctors, and Franciscan Popes: between the arches of the chapels are the medallions of St. Benedict and St. Dominic. A pointed and dentilled arch opens the presbytery, paved with pink Assisi marble; a second triumphal arch leads to the wooden choir, separated by another arch from the apse, built in 1930.
Upon exiting onto the churchyard, one can observe the harmonious and slender 15th-century bell tower that repeats the characteristics of Romanesque-Gothic bell towers. At the center of the road stands a spire surmounted by a sphere with an iron cross affixed, which, together with the stone inscription walled into the enclosure of the square in front of the church, testifies to the presence of the ancient cemetery located along the northern wing of the church.
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