Room 10
X/1 capital with acanthus leaves and heads
unknown Umbrian sculptor
white marble, XIV century, first half
cm 34 x 30
lower diameter cm 24,5
X/2 Solomonic column
unknown Umbrian sculptor
white marble, XIV century, first half
base cm 2,4 x 40 x 40
column cm 76 x 20
Erratic capital of unknown origin.
The four heads are males and females with different strongly portrayed expressions.
One of them is a tonsured clerical with the inscription “D P R” that were interpreted as D[OMINUS] P[RIOR]R by Vittoria Garibaldi (2005) demonstrating its original belonging to the capital of a mendicant order or perhaps to a Benedictine priorship.
Angelina Rota, in the catalogue of the Civic Muesum of Spoleto (1928), has written that “altre simili sculture esistono nella Villa Redenta, proprietà del marchese Liborio Marignoli, lungo la via Flaminia”.
No trace of these sculptures has been kept, but from the same tablet collection we find a vault corbel decorated with acanthus leaves and two fragmented human masks and the drum of a twisted column decorated with three spiral bands with raceme of thistles, lilies and ivy that were probably part of the same composition, maybe a columned funeral monument set against a wall.
The strong realism of the heads and the natural appearance of the vegetal adornments can be compared to the decoration found on the central pillars of the façade of the Cathedral of Orvieto, that was performed with the collaboration of Siennese, Umbrian and Transalpine workers between the last decade of the XIII century and the first two decades of the XIV century.