Chiesa della Santissima Trinità in Monte Oliveto

The construction of the church was started in 1073 by the monks of Vallombrosa (on top of a previous construction) and it was consacrated to Santissima Trinità in 1117. During that year the church suffered great damages due to an earthquake and several years went by before the monastery could be completed.

The shack style facade is Romanesque and leads to an atrium (extension of the previous church) with a number of coupled columns which form a kind of a small cloister between the facade itself and the entrance. The walls structure is the traditional Romanesque Veronese style by alternate glazed and bricks lines, up to the top decorated with flying-buttresses under the eaves. The Bell Tower continues the alternation of the colours ending up with a terracotta conical core and four pinnacles. Around the belfry there are three-light windows with nice coupled little columns. The inside of the church has a longitudinal plan, with one single nave ending with three apses.

Due to much tampering through several periods,  several original Romanesque parts of the church and of the monastery of the Trinity went lost. Later manufectured parts were added to the older ones, at times mixed all together and sometimes badly matching one another. The church itself was extended and houses and palaces were build around it hiding the sight of the church.

Around 1441 the monks of Vallombrosa disappeared and several other institutions arose near the church inside the former monastery. The church was also deconsecrated in the 19th century, when even the roof was about to collapse. The two cloisters annexed to the monastery were both destroyed by the air bombing on April 6 1945; who know about the two cloisters thanks to old drawings and pictures. Inside the church, the works of art too had to face time and history damages: the frescos were partly covered or spoiled through the centuries and some canvas were damaged by the war.

Among those noteworthy artworks we can still admire frescos and canvas by Veronese  (father and son) Domenico and Felice Brusasorzi and one fresco by Martino da Verona showing a beautiful gothic Annunciation decorating the triumphal arch (end of the 14th century).