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The church is dedicated to St Pantaleon, a martyr saint who was a thaumaturge, i.e. a healer: he was a doctor who died during the persecutions ordered by the Emperor Diocletian. In an isolated position on the left bank of the Arroscia, at the edge of the old cart road towards the village of Ranzo, the church of St Pantaleon can be recognised by the frescoed portico, supported by two stone columns with cubic capitals. The original protoromanesque chapel, built in the 11th century, had been enlarged between the 14th and 15th centuries, eventually taking on softer forms, new windows and a roof with rounded corners due to interventions in the 17th century. The interior has been preserved in the form of a single hall, although transformed into a Baroque style, and ends in two distinct apsidal areas that corresponded to the spaces in which the late mediaeval church was organised. There are many cycles of frescoes to be admired, most of which can be attributed to a workshop based in Ranzo. Those in the outer portico, dating from the end of the 15th century, portray the Passion of Christ, Scenes of St Pantaleon and the Resurrection of Lazarus, dated 1488. Renovation work inside revealed another series of early 16th century wall paintings, with the Blessed, Hell and the Cavalcade of Vices, some of which have been attributed to an unidentified Master of St Pantaleon. Typical subjects of late mediaeval imagery are the large St Christopher that concludes the sequence on the right and the succession of the Months.
SP453, 1, 18020 Calabria IM, Italia
