The Temple is one of the seven monuments of the serial site ‘Longobards in Italy. Places of the power’, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in June 2011.
It’s a construction with unique features, due to the discordance between the architectural model, of the classical type, and its original destination, linked to Christian worship.
Its morphological eccentricity encouraged various interpretations regarding its original purpose. Critical historiography suggested to date this temple to quite different eras, ranging from Late Antiquity (4th-5th century), to the Longobard period (7th-8th century), up to the period of classical taste revival that occurred in the Spoleto area during the Romanesque period (12th-13th century).
The Temple of Clitumnus is a small sacellum in the form of an in antis Corinthian tetrastyle temple with two side porticoes and wall paintings of remarkable quality.
The façade is delineated by beautiful leaf-covered columns and by an architrave bearing an inscription in Roman square capitals invoking to God. It represents one of the very rare examples of monumental epigraphy from the early Middle Age.
The small Temple recalls the Basilica of San Salvatore in Spoleto for the design and expertise in the use of ancient spolia.
The interior wall paintings of remarkable quality have been related to those in the presbytery of Santa Maria Antiqua in Rome. These frescoes surround the marble aedicula of the apse, which is characterised by a mixture of reused architectural elements and newly executed decorations.
