Church of San Teodoro
Descrizione

Walking through the hamlet’s little, narrow streets, which lead to the main square, we come across the church of San Teodoro.
Principal works of art
Inside it is possible to admire the Annunciazione [Annunciation] by Antonello Gagini, which, besides being considered a masterpiece of the Southern-Italian Renaissance, bears significant witness to the influence Latin artistic culture had upon the Greek enclave of the southern Aspromonte, at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
The sculptural group by Antonello Gagini (1478-1536), now in the left aisle of the church of St. Theodore of Bagaladi, comes from the older building dedicated to worship of the Annunciation that was damaged by earthquake on the 16th November 1894 and again in 1908. This work is a philological representation of the Annunciation of the Virgin according to the dictates of the iconography of the time. The figures of the Angel Gabriel and of the Virgin Mary are in the round and stand on the base. At the centre, in high relief, there is a lectern, while the entire tableau is dominated by the Eternal Father, also in relief, looking down from heaven. The scene is flanked by two pilasters decorated with grotesques and which support an architrave bearing the year in which the work was sculpted and the name of the person who commissioned it: “Hoc opus fecit fieri presbiter Iacopus D. Virducio ad Nunciatae Virginis honorem – 1504”. [lit. This work was made possible by the priest Jacopo D. Virducio in honour of the Virgin of the Annunciation – 1504]
The sculptural ensemble is set within a typical Tuscan-Renaissance architectural structure, made entirely from white Carrara marble, which was originally painted in tempera and gold. Residues of the paint and gilding are still visible in several places, especially on the faces and on the angel’s clothing, where the floral decorations are very easy to see. The inscription on the architrave was painted in black to make reading of the text easy.
The work underwent major renovation at the beginning of the twentieth century and later around the 1970’s, when the entire chapel was faced in travertine. The sculpture was attributed to Gagini by Alfonso Frangipane, who carried out a survey and wrote a detailed report concerning it in 1933, providing interesting indications about the original arrangement of the wall behind the sculpture, now in marble slabs, which, at the time of Frangipane’s survey, was damaged.
Besides the inscription on the architrave, Frangipane speaks of another one, no longer visible today, stating that: «On the base of [the statute] of the Madonna lettering not well etched, or rather, sculpted by an unskilled hand…1562 frat. Bartolo Costa». From the end of the last century on, the work has undergone several serious studies, especially by the German school, which has acknowledged that the Bagaladi sculpture shows signs of contributions by Gagini and his workshop. Recently it has been hypothesised that the Bagaladi Annunciation represents the debut in Calabria of Antonello Gagini, who was becoming increasingly independent of his father’s workshop.
Of noteworthy importance is the marble crucifix which depicts, on the reverse side of the arms, busts of the apostles, an iconographic choice typical of late-medieval silver reliquary crosses. Although this cross is often referred to as a “Byzantine crucifix”, it is likely that it was produced by a late-fifteenth or early-sixteenth- century workshop. It is not impossible to hypothesise that the crucifix came from the Gagini workshop. Kruft believes that, in Bagaladi, alongside Antonello, worked Bartholomew Berrettaro and Giuliano Mancino, artists who still adhered to the rigid approach followed by Domenico Gagini and Laureana, both particularly attached to the Tuscan-Carrara methods of Renaissance origin. Between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, this type of crucifix in marble, examples of which are found mainly in the centre and north of the peninsula, were rarely produced in southern Italy.
These sculptures, in white Carrara marble, attract the attention of visitors not on account of their size but because of the significant mysticism they express.
Also of relevance are some ancient bells that appear to have been found among the ruins of the Tucci Valley lavras.
Descriptions of works by Pasquale Faenza.





