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Origin and history

The church Santa Maria Assunta de Canari, located in the hamlet of Pieve, is an emblematic religious building of Cape Corsica. Built in the 12th century in a pisan Romanesque style, it served as a spiritual center to the ancient piève of Canari. Its green shale slabs, extracted from the quarry close to San Guglielmu, and its vivid well-equipped joints demonstrate remarkable craftsmanship. The original nave, covered with lauzes, ended with a semicircular choir vaulted in half-coupole, partially collapsed in 1994.

In the 17th century, the church underwent major changes: two side chapels were added, the Romanesque choir replaced by a square choir, and the vaulted nave. These changes, while partially disfiguring the original building, reflect the liturgical and aesthetic evolutions of the Baroque era. The northern façade retains a commemorative stone in Gothic characters, almost illegible, while the western door lintel, finely chiseled, has stylized plant motifs. A cornice adorned with preroman sculptures (human masks, rams' heads, leaves) runs along the outer walls, highlighting the mixture of times.

The church was at the heart of the religious and social life of Canari, a piève formerly dependent on the bishopric of Nebbiu. Its campanile, built in the 17th century at 305 meters above sea level, served as a seamer and dominated the landscape as far as the Gulf of St.Florent. In the vicinity, archaeological excavations revealed the remains of a preroman apse, attesting to an earlier religious occupation. The building, inscribed in the Historical Monuments in 1995, still houses a 17th century painting, depicting a saint resurrecting a child, as well as a commemorative plaque of 1468 in Latin, evoking a miracle related to its construction.

The historical context of Canari, marked by seigneurial conflicts (Avogari-Gentile family, Cenci) and invasions (Genoese, Barbaresque), influenced the development of the church. In the Middle Ages, Canari was a strategic seigneurial seat, before being shaved in 1554 by Andrea Doria in retaliation against the supporters of Sampiero Corso. The reconstruction and additions of the seventeenth century coincided with a period of relative stability under the Genoese administration, then French after 1768. The church, symbol of resilience, remains a place of pilgrimage at the feast of the Assumption (15 August), where a procession with torches honors the Madonna.

The surrounding heritage, such as the convent Saint Francis (XVI century) or the chapels scattered in the hamlets (Santa Maria Annunziata in Vignale, San Roccu in Olmi), underscores the religious importance of Canari. The region, marked by an agro-pastoral economy (cedors, vineyards, olive trees) and mining (asbestos career closed in 1965), has seen its landscape transformed by terraces (trasti) and dry stone walls. The church Santa Maria Assunta, by its architecture and its history, embodies this symbiosis between faith, seigneurial power and community life in Cape Corsica.

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