The early medieval church '' inlays in the facade of the present building, originally the right wall of the early medieval church. A primitive place of worship was built on the site of the present building between the 8th and 9th centuries. It was located in the built-up area of the city, had an orthogonal orientation compared to the present one, with the entrance on the ancient
decumanus (today's Ladislaus Street); The church had a single nave, in the back wall of which was a small semicircular
apse partly excavated in the rock. The interior was probably covered with a wooden truss ceiling and was illuminated by two
mullioned windows that were located in the right wall and can still be seen, plugged, on the facade of the church (which has, in the lower part, a different wall face than the rest of the building, with inlays in
opus spicatum, the arrangement of which, however, would not be the original one) and by two single-arched lancet windows that are also currently walled in and visible inside the building, in the first two bays of the left
aisle above the ancient entrance door. The early medieval church was probably dedicated to the
Salvator Mundi (not to be confused with the church of the same name in Caetani alley, currently reduced to a state of ruins) and it would be the same building mentioned under that title in the
Codex diplomaticus cajetanus in 887 along the
platea maior (which can be identified as present-day Ladislaus Street), a document in which it is stated that the priest Mellitus, operating in San Salvatore, received in
emphyteusis a warehouse with workshops located in the city from Count Giovanni, son of Ramfo. The same writing also mentions the nearby church of St. Benedict, which then, by 1024, would acquire its title. The indication given by Salvatore Ferraro of
St. Lucy as dedicatee of the original building from a 976 document of the
Codex diplomaticus cajetanus within which, in a dispute concerning the goods of the church of St. Nicholas on the island of
Zannone, reference is made to a Giorgio, archpriest of the church of Santa Lucia Martire, would be erroneous in that it would refer not to the building in
Gaeta but to the demolished church and deaconry of Santa Lucia in
Septizodium in Rome. In a report compiled in 1591 by Bishop
Alfonso Laso Sedeño for the Royal Chamber of the Sommaria, the parish of the same name is described as one of the absolute oldest in the city, along with those of St. Peter, St. Thomas and St. George, which is why the parish priest was entitled to wear the
mitre, a tradition that fell into disuse in the 19th century. The
Duke of Gaeta John III promoted restorations to the church.
Late medieval reconstruction In the 11th century the church was rebuilt taking as a model the
abbey basilica of Montecassino, The axis was rotated by 90°, so that the ancient facade was incorporated into the left side wall; the environment assumed a basilical plan of early Christian derivation, with three
naves separated by arches resting on bare columns and covered with a truss ceiling. The Gaetan church, in its new layout, differed from the Desiderian basilica in the absence of a
transept, and had an appearance similar to that of the basilica of
Sant'Angelo in Formis, near
Capua, or the church of Santa Maria in Foro Claudio, in Ventaroli (
Carinola). As part of the same intervention, a bell tower with a quadrangular base was also built. first witnessed in a 1218 document relating to the donation to the monastery of Sant'Erasmo in
Formia of a dwelling located near the church, it was maintained until the entire seventeenth century, as evidenced by two tombstones present inside the church and respectively dated 1480 and 1681, before being replaced by the current one, which had been in place alongside the previous one since at least the second half of the fifteenth century, being mentioned for the first time in the 1459 census. The church underwent restoration in the 13th century, probably following the earthquake of June 1, 1213, which had its epicenter under the
Aurunci Mountains and caused extensive damage in the surrounding area, within which the city of
Gaeta was situated. At that juncture, the original wooden-beam roofing was replaced, in all three naves, with
rib vaults; for this reason it was necessary to reinforce the walls by providing them with buttresses (in the left side aisle) and increasing their thickness (in the central aisle). the interior of the church was enriched with frescoes, in some cases even covering the older ones. the church of Santa Maria in Pensulis performed the function of palatine chapel because of its proximity to the palace where the sovereign resided.
The Renaissance and Baroque interventions During the following centuries the church did not undergo substantial changes, which allowed it to maintain its medieval structure almost unchanged: the interventions conducted were aimed at enriching the interior of the building with decorative elements in Renaissance and Baroque style. In 1456 the parish priest Giuliano D'Orca During the 15th century a number of side altars were built along the minor aisles. the interior was enriched with sober
stucco and
scagliola decorations placed to adorn the underlying medieval structures, assuming an appearance somewhat similar to that of the present collegiate church of San Pietro in
Minturno. Four new altars were built in place of the previous one, dedicated to
St. Joseph,
St. Philip Neri, the Crucifix and
St. Lucy, respectively. The high altar was incorporated within a gilded wooden
retable placed immediately in front of the apsidal arch: the two side sections consisted of as many arched
niches richly decorated with bas-reliefs and containing the statues of St. Peter (left) and St. Paul (right), respectively, while the central one was formed by Giovanni da Gaeta's
triptych inserted within a cornice; the latter, attributable to the carving circle of
Giovanni Francesco Mormando and consisting of a tall
entablature with a bas-relief frieze, supported by two twisted
fluted Corinthian columns and surmounted by the statues of St. Erasmus (left), St. Marcian (right) and St. Michael the Archangel (center), was probably the front part of the pipe organ built in the 16th century for the
Gaeta Cathedral; in the fields left empty at the top by the triptych were painted the Evangelists. Above the retable, completely occluding the
apse, was a rich stucco decoration depicting a velarium held open by two angels, which departed from a wooden crown of considerable size. at the end of which, on July 13, 1755, Bishop Gennaro Carmignani of Gaeta consecrated three new altars: On May 8, 1765, the same bishop proceeded with the dedication of the church: During the 19th century the church, which was too small to be readapted for military purposes, continued to be the site of a parish and to be regularly officiated, In 1852, Giacomo Guarinelli, a major and commander of the Engineers, as well as an architect who was also active in
Gaeta at that time for the
neo-Gothic expansion and rebuilding of the
temple of St. Francis, was commissioned to restore some of the city's churches including that of Santa Lucia, where he particularly wanted to recover the cosmatesque fragments of the floor and the bas-reliefs then considered part of the
cathedral's ancient and lost
ambon; the work never took place. Onorato Gaetani dell'Aquila d'Aragona, mayor of Gaeta in 1870-1876, wanted to transfer the parish to the nearby
church of Saint Catherine of Alexandria during his term in office in order to turn the once-deconsecrated church of Santa Lucia into a museum of art and local history. The structure was consolidated and all the Baroque decorations removed, and the church was reduced to an extreme bareness; all the altars (including the high altar made of
scagliola) were also demolished, except for the marble altar placed at the apse of the early medieval church. The new high altar was made by reusing as a mensa the tomb slab of Bishop Carlo Pignatelli (who died and was buried in the church of Santa Lucia in 1730) placed on two small columns, and by assembling together the remains of two ancient
plutei, previously walled in at the sides of the apse; the artifact consisted of
cosmatesque mosaic elements and, at the sides of the tabernacle, four 13th-century bas-reliefs depicting (from left to right): the Eagle, the Angel, a Griffin and a two-tailed Mermaid. The wooden Renaissance
retable was dismembered, retaining only the 1456 triptych by Giovanni di Gaeta and the frame within which it had been inserted at a later date; the triptych by Giovanni da Gaeta was removed and underwent restoration in 1956, to be then displayed, together with the painted Crucifix by the same author, at the Diocesan Museum; above the altar remained the frame, empty. The flooring was also redone, bringing it to an intermediate height between the hitherto existing one and the original one, removing some of the tombstones that were part of it by repositioning them along the walls of the church, and restoring fragments of cosmatesque floor mosaics, which were concentrated in the presbytery area. At the same elevation of the latter (raised a few steps above the rest of the church), the floor of the last bay of both minor aisles was also brought. The church was damaged by bombing on the night of September 8–9, 1943, which is why it was necessary to restore its roofing, which was carried out in 1945. the worship of
St. Lucy and the parish were initially transferred to the nearby
church of St. Catherine of Alexandria until the latter's closure in 1987 as well. In 1974 major restoration work began, promoted by the Superintendence, which involved the entire building, which was in very poor structural condition, and lasted for fifteen years articulated in two distinct phases: the first (1974-1975) concerned the exterior, while the second (1983-1989) the interior. archaeological investigations were conducted in the course of which the ancient floor level came to light; underneath it, the left side wall of the early medieval church (demolished in the 11th century to allow for the expansion of the building and parallel to the present façade) and numerous burials, both in the area of the early church and under the 12th-century nave, were discovered. A new floor was then put in place, recovering the original difference in height between the floor level of the last bay of the aisles and that of the presbytery, bringing to light the ancient steps of access to the latter, and recomposing in the apsidal and presbytery areas the fragments of cosmatesque flooring. The
side altar located near the early medieval apse and the high altar mensa with its supporting columns were removed, as well as all the neo-medieval-style additions made by Gino Chierici, including the twentieth-century
baptismal font located in the first bay of the left aisle close to the counterfacade, framed by cosmatesque mosaic fragments from the ancient plutei that were placed on the altar. From the 1990s onwards, the former church did not have a specific and stable purpose for its use: having dropped the idea of setting up a lapidary museum inside it, it was occasionally used for cultural events and temporary exhibitions. In 2006, due to persistent water infiltration inside and outside the building, the municipality of Gaeta resolved that it should again undergo a conservative restoration, aimed at making it usable and suitable for its use as a venue for cultural and artistic activities. The work began in 2010, after the surviving ancient elements of the high altar had been removed in 2009 (destined on loan for use by the
cathedral, In 2016, the municipality approved the reconversion of the building into a theater, providing for new restorations to adapt it to this destination. As part of these works, the frescoes were restored, the plasterwork renewed, and a wooden platform was built to extend the former presbytery area toward the nave. The Santa Lucia auditorium was inaugurated on December 12, 2021. == Description ==