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Church of SS. Crocefisso or Church of the Cross

Typology: extra-urban chapel
Chronology: XVII-XX century
The Church of SS. Crocefisso or The Church of the Cross was founded by the will of the Vicar Don Luca Piersanti in 1652, to carry out a popular mission. The building has got inscriptions on the two portals, the main one refers to Constantine's vision of the sign of the Cross appeared in the sky.
In the pinewood outside Porta Spoletina there is the Church of SS. Crocefisso or The Church of the Cross built by Don Luca Piersanti in 1652, to fulfill the mission of the friar Serafino of Castel Sant'Angelo.
The building, currently of the Landowners Association of Monteleone di Spoleto, has a simple gabled structure adorned with a little interior, dominated by wooden cross applied to the back wall. On the main portal there is the inscription "HOC SIGNO (embossed cross) VINCENDUM" (With this sign we want to win) inspired by a prodigious vision of the Emperor Constantine (312), while on the side door there is the following writing: " HILAREM DATOREM DILIGIT DEUS" (God loves a cheerful giver, 2 Cor 9: 7). A twentieth-century fountain is situated just in front of the church. In this area, in 1932 a memorial was erected in Memory of Arnaldo Mussolini (1885-1931), thrown into the ruins after the fall of the regime.

In the pinewood outside Porta Spoletina there is the Church of SS. Crocefisso or The Church of the Cross, built by Don Luca Piersanti in 1652, to fulfill the mission of the friar Serafino of Castel Sant'Angelo.
The popular missions, usually remembered with the erection of a cross, were adopted as a sign of religious reinvigoration by many religious orders such as Jesuits, Capuchins, Redemptorists, Passionists, Dominicans. This practice was widespread used by the end of the sixteenth century until the second half of the twentieth century, as an instrument of a renewal and strengthening of the faith. During the Lent of 1652, Frair Serafino fixed a large cross in the edge of a plateau near a small chapel, where the new church was erected few months after. Here there is the wooden cross, whose fragments are taken by the pilgrims in prayer.
The building looks like a simple rectangle, with a sloping roof with wooden frames and tiles. The facade is covered with a listing plaster (for engraving) that seems stone. The door under the oculus has a lintel bearing the inscription "HOC SIGNO (embossed cross) VINCENDUM" (With this sign we want to win), clearly inspired to Constantine (in the days before the Battle of Milvian Bridge on 28th October 312, Emperor Constantine would appear in the sky a cross and an inscription in Greek announcing: "With this sign you will win "; the next night Christ himself ordered him to take this sign as his banner. Such signs would be at the base of the emperor's conversion to Christianity). Instead the side door has the following inscription: "HILAREM DATOREM DILIGIT DEUS" (God loves a cheerful giver), a phrase taken from the Second Letter to the Corinthians (9, 7).
Just in front, there is a twentieth-century fountain in cement, decorated with scaled fish shelled with tails knotted  on themselves. In this area in 1932 a stone monument in memory of Arnaldo Mussolini (1885-1931) was erected, then promptly removed and thrown into the ravine after the fall of the regime. The interior is not particularly artistic but there is just a little room adorned with an altar surmounted by a wooden cross. In the past decades the complex was at the center of May 3rd celebrations, the day of the Invention of the Holy Cross (SS. Crocefisso), in other words the finding of the cross of Jesus occurred in 327 thanks to Saint Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine. The procession, led by the Relic of the Holy Cross, was held from the village to pinewood, and during the course there was the blessing of the fields and to the work of men.
The Church of the Cross, after a long dependency on the parish church of Saint Nicola, is currently managed by the Landowners Association of Monteleone di Spoleto.