Echoes of Milan in ninth-century Langobardia Minor? : preliminary findings on the painted programme of S. Ambrogio alla Rienna, Montecorvino Rovella (Salerno)

Thanks to new material analysis and ongoing archaeological investigation, the church of S. Ambrogio alla Rienna, in the countryside of Salerno, is revealing essential information about the cultural coexistence of Lombards and Franks. The church's excellent mid-ninth-century mural paintings serve to highlight political and theological disputes, as well as ethnic identities and the economic and social dynamics of the early medieval period. In the eighth and ninth centuries, the area had been part of the principality (former duchy) of Benevento and Salerno. The church was at the center of a network of landholdings belonging to the powerful monastery of S. Vincenzo al Volturno. What remains of the original painted program suggests wealthy patronage closely connected, on the one hand, to the culture of the Lombard courts and main monasteries, and, on the other hand, to Carolingian politics in northern Lombardy.