The overall project for the restoration of the House for the Blind at Civate, which includes the church o S, Calocero with frescoes and structures of the 12th century onwards, the cloister and the structures of the ex-monastery. also involved an excavation. This was undertaken in the ex-prison which linked the church and monastery that were originally detached from each other. Both the passageway and the sacristy are additional elements created during the transformation of the structure in the 19th century when, having been deconsecrated, it was used for storage. It was here that the excavation took place. Below the present floor level was a layer of levelling rubble, the removal of which revealed the remains of a path providing access to the altar zone. This was constituted by a by a thin layer of lime mortar laid over mixed rubble (stones, blocks of mortar and brick fragments). This rested on the remains of another pavement make up in a weak lime mortar which in turn covered a tract of apse wall from an earlier building phase, cut by the crypt wall and the monastery’s perimeter wall. The removal of the rubble revealed the wall standing to a height of 60cm and built in local squared stone blocks bonded with lime mortar. Below this were the remains of a dry-stone circular structure placed directly on the bed-rock. In recent times architectural fragments and early medieval tombstones had been inserted into the sacristy walls that are comparable to others recovered from the stratigraphic excavation, thus it is possible to suggest a date of the 7th century A.D. for the apsidal remains. This provides a terminus ante quem for the earlier structure. as no finds came to light which provide more precise dating. (Paolo Corti)

The vestry floor rested on the bedrock. There were no finds but it was ascertained that the apse had been added, linking the crypt to the monastery. Below the crypt floor, raised in the apse by 20 cm, the base of an altar was found in the centre of the presbytery. This rested on a thin concrete floor forming a single level, which covered the threshold of a door made in the apse during the church’s “civil” use and blocked up in around 1930 when cult use resumed. Below the concrete was a mortar makeup showing traces of terracotta floor tiles, three rubble filled trenches and, in the apse, more rubble which when removed revealed a rough opus signinum floor. In the western part of the crypt traces of steps leading to the upper church were found. Near a pilaster in the apse a “casetta” made of tile segments was found. As it was empy no certain interpretation was possible: the hypothesis being that it was a hiding place for reliquaries. Excavation of the trenches produced fragments of decorative architectural elements and reached down to the bedrock. It was also ascertained that the stone columns, at present in their natural state, were plastered in antiquity. The patches of _opus signinum_ floor in the apse were removed revealing a makeup of stones overlying mortar cast directly on the bedrock. The base of the apse wall had an offset on which the pilasters rested. The stone pilasters were originally semicircular and faced with plaster. They were demolished down to the level of the cement, as was the exterior apse wall, and subsequently rebuilt in rectangular form and in a staggered position with respect to the originals. It is suggested that these remains, pre-existing the 12th century church, belonged to an independent structure that was demolished and subsequently used as the foundations for the enlargement of the church.