Church of Saint Victoria

The Church of Saint Victoria is located at the eastern extremity of the main road of the town of Tissi, in an elevated point of Via Roma. Originally, the 12th century building had a longitudinal plan with a single nave, of small dimensions, with a trussed roof and semi-circular apse. The church was rebuilt in the 17th century and in order to erect the external buttresses, ashlars from the pre-existing Romanesque church were reused. Also, two lateral chapels were added to the quadrangular presbytery, covered by a barrel vault traversed by ribs (tn* rib: an arch of masonry which forms part of the framework on which a vault rests. Ribs generally project from the undersurface of the vault). The bell gable also dates back to the same period. Only the façade of the Romanesque church still stands, built with sharply cut limestone ashlars, in regular rows, although sometimes not uniform. The façade lacks corner pilasters: along the edges there is a simple moulded frame, over which one of the nine arches with a thin doubled arched lintel stands, forming a horizontal arcade, and separating it from the smooth and undecorated upper part. One of the arches is decorated with carved geometrical motifs, while on the corbels, and on the lower part there is a frieze decorated with spindles, with engraved human protomes on the sides, bucrania (ox skulls often used as a decorative element in Greek and Roman art), waterleaf and ram protomes. The entrance portal has an architrave, with a semi-circular lunette, and its two toned arch, has alternating trachyte and limestone ashlars.

Source: “Tissi, The Territory from Prehistory to The Middle Ages” (in Italian), by Pina Maria Derudas