Around the courtyard of the church of S. Andrea, situated at the northern limit of the historic centre of Iseo is found evidence for religious and civil buildings of the medieval town: a Romanesque parish church, a Baroque building dedicated to S. Giovanni built above an earlier baptistery, the small Romanesque church of S. Silvestro and two small palaces of the 12th and 13th centuries. Moreover, the courtyard is crossed by an ancient road which passed through the northern gate, known as the Porciolo, in the city walls.
Trial trenches revealed a small section of a late antique structure. The medieval palaces confirmed the continuation of a facing of large ashlar blocks, whose build cut a wall of small roughly shaped limestone blocks bonded with sparse mortar. Unfortunately, the presence up against the western perimeter wall of large masonry built post-medieval tombs prevented the recording of the entire length of the Romanesque wall.
A trench dug in the courtyard and in via Pusterla intercepted an alignment of 12 inhumation burials, datable to the late medieval period, on an E-W orientation, in rectangular or anthropoid shaped coffins, non of which contained grave goods.
A floor level was uncovered up against the Romanesque portal together with a good example of a monolithic sarcophagus which functioned as the base for the church steps.
Several different road levels were identified in the via Pusterla, dating to between the 11th-13th century.
In the area of the so-called Porciolo stood one of the four city gates built in the first decades of the 1300s, of which a series of walls remain. (Alice Leoni)