Editing Benevento (section)

===Santa Sofia===
[[File:Santa Sofia, Benevento 02.jpg|thumb|right|The church of ''Santa Sofia''.]]
{{main|Santa Sofia, Benevento}}
The church of ''Santa Sofia'' is a circular Lombard edifice dating to c. 760, now modernized, of small proportions, and is one of the main examples of religious [[Lombard architecture]]. The plan consists of a central hexagon with, at each vertex, columns taken from the temple of [[Isis]]; these are connected by arches which support the cupola. The inner hexagon is in turn enclosed in a decagonal ring with eight white limestone pillars and two columns next to the entrance. The church has a fine [[cloister]] of the 12th century, constructed in part of fragments of earlier buildings.<ref name="EB1911"/> This cloister today is the location of the Museo del Sannio. The church interior was once totally frescoed by [[Byzantine art|Byzantine]] artists: fragments of these paintings, portraying the ''Histories of Christ'', can be still seen in the two side apses.

Santa Sofia was almost destroyed by the [[1688 Sannio earthquake|earthquake of 1688]], and rebuilt in [[Baroque architecture|Baroque]] forms by commission of the then cardinal Orsini of Benevento (later [[Pope Benedict XIII]]). The original forms were hidden, and were recovered only after the discussed restoration of 1951.

In 2011, it became a [[UNESCO World Heritage Site]] as part of a group of seven inscribed as [[Longobards in Italy, Places of Power (568-774 A.D.)]].