Nonantyola abbey:
The Façade

Nonantola Abbey: the façade. It is characterized by a mullioned window in the centre which gives light to the central nave and by a narthex supported by two marble columns on column-bearing lions, which frames the splendid portal. The current façade is the result of the restorations carried out at the beginning of the twentieth century. Built in the 11th century, the façade - and more generally the entire church - was altered at the end of the 17th century, taking on a Baroque appearance. During the twentieth-century restorations, the traces of the Baroque church were eliminated to bring the church back to Romanesque architecture. The protiro frames the portal with its tiles, an irrefutably authentic trace - together with the apses - of the Romanesque age.