Religious sites in Italy
Brescia New Cathedral
Construction of the Brescia New Cathedral, Duomo Nuovo, was begun in 1604 at the site where the paleo-Christian 5th-6th century basilica of San Pietro de Dom was located. The original commission was given to Andrea Palladio, but the commission was subsequently granted to the architect Giovanni Battista Lantana. He was aided by Pietro Maria Bagnadore. Work was interrupted during a season of plague around 1630. Work s ...
Founded: 1604 |
Location:
Brescia, Italy
Trieste Cathedral
Trieste Cathedral (Basilica cattedrale di San Giusto Martire), dedicated to Saint Justus, is the seat of the Bishop of Trieste. The first religious edifice on the site was built in the 6th century, using part of the existing structure. Perhaps the entrance to a monument, this was commonly known as the Capitoline Temple, as a pyramidal altar with the symbols of the Capitoline Triad (Jupiter, Juno and Minerva) had been foun ...
Founded: 1320 |
Location:
Trieste, Italy
Brescia Old Cathedral
The Duomo Vecchio or Old Cathedral (also called La Rotonda because of its round layout) is a rustic circular Romanesque co-cathedral standing next to the Duomo Nuovo (New Cathedral) of Brescia. It is one of the most important examples of Romanesque round church in Italy. While some claims for an earlier construction exist, the earliest documents state the cathedral was built in the 11th century on the site of ...
Founded: 11th century |
Location:
Brescia, Italy
Basilica of Saint Clement
The Basilica of Saint Clement, dedicated to Pope Clement I, is especially notable for its three historical layers. The 12th-century basilica is built on top of a well-preserved 4th-century church (with many frescoes), which was built next to a 3rd-century Mithraic Temple. For an admission fee, it is possible to explore the excavations of the lower two levels, which is a fascinating journey into the history of Rome. This ...
Founded: 300-400 AD |
Location:
Rome, Italy
Santa Marta Church
Santa Marta was initially built in the late 15th-century but rebuilt at the end of the 16th century by the Confraternity of Santa Marta, a confraternity of disciplinanti (or flagellants). To the right of the entrance, they built an oratory. Of the original decoration only one altar remains, and traces of frescoes in the presbytery and some lunettes in the walls of the oratory. Deconsecrated after World War Two, it bec ...
Founded: 16th century |
Location:
Ivrea, Italy
Sorrento Cathedral
Sorrento Cathedral, dedicated to Saints Philip and James, was first built around the 11th century and was rebuilt in the 15th century in Romanesque style. The cathedral bell tower has three storeys, and is decorated with a clock. The base of the bell tower dates to the time of the Roman Empire. The façade dates from 1924. The main doors are of the 11th century from Constantinople. The interior, on a Latin cro ...
Founded: 11th century |
Location:
Sorrento, Italy
Santi Nereo e Achilleo
Santi Nereo e Achilleo is a fourth-century basilica church facing the main entrance to the Baths of Caracalla. This same building is recorded as titulus Sanctorum Nerei et Achillei in 595; therefore the dedications to Saints Nereus and Achilleus, two soldiers and martyrs of the 4th century, must date to the sixth century. In 814, Pope Leo III rebuilt the old church. In the 13th century the relics of the two martyrs were ...
Founded: c. 337 AD |
Location:
Rome, Italy
Santo Stefano Church
Santo Stefano church is one of the most outstanding examples of Romanesque architecture in Genoa. It was founded in the Middle Ages as part of an abbey, in the place where previously a 6th-century small church, entitled to St. Michael Archangel, was located. The most ancient document mentioning Santo Stefano dates from 965, although some scholars attribute its foundation in 972 to the then bishop of Genoa, Theodulf, who r ...
Founded: 10th century AD |
Location:
Genoa, Italy
Basilica of San Zeno
The Basilica di San Zeno name rests partly on its architecture and partly upon the tradition that its crypt was the place of the marriage of Shakespeare"s Romeo and Juliet. It stands adjacent to a Benedictine abbey, both dedicated to St Zeno of Verona. St. Zeno died in 380. According to legend, at a site above his tomb along the Via Gallica, the first small church was erected by Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostr ...
Founded: 9th century |
Location:
Verona, Italy
Santi Apostoli Church
Santi Apostoli, with the adjacent Romanesque chapel of the Sante Teuteria e Tosca, is an ancient Roman Catholic church in front of a piazza off Corso Cavour. A church at this site of the Chiesetta was consecrated in 751 on an earlier fifth-century structure, but reconstructed in the 12th-century. Reconstruction of this and Santi Apostoli were pursued across the centuries including major ones in the 18th and 20th-centuries ...
Founded: 12th century |
Location:
Verona, Italy
Trani Cathedral
Trani Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral dedicated to Saint Nicholas the Pilgrim in Trani, Apulia, south-eastern Italy. Formerly the seat of the archbishop of Trani, it is now that of the archbishop of Trani-Barletta-Bisceglie. Construction began in 1099, over the earlier church of Santa Maria della Scala, which went back to the 4th century. The new church was intended to house the relics of Saint Nicholas the Pilgri ...
Founded: 1143 |
Location:
Trani, Italy
San Vittore al Corpo
The church and monastery of San Vittore al Corpo was built by the Olivetan order in the early 16th century. The site once had a 4th-century basilica and mausoleum that once held the burials of the emperors Gratian and Valentinian III. The basilica was enlarged in the 8th century to house the relics of the saints Vittore and Satiro. A Benedictine monastery soon was attached to the church. In 1507, the monastery was ...
Founded: 16th century |
Location:
Milan, Italy
San Giorgio Church
San Giorgio Church at the site is documented since 775. In 1218, Franciscan friars erected a nearby monastery and were in possession of the church. But by 1254, they had moved to the convent and church of San Francesco. By 1429, this parish church was in a dilapidated state, and a major restoration, including present facade occurred in 1639. An inventory of works in 1826 noted to right of nave an oil painting depicting a ...
Founded: 8th century AD |
Location:
Brescia, Italy
Basilica of Saints John and Paul
The Basilica of Saints John and Paul on the Caelian Hill was built in 398 AD over the home of two Roman soldiers, John and Paul, martyred under the emperor Julian in 362. The church was thus called the Titulus Pammachii and is recorded as such in the acts of the synod held by Pope Symmachus in 499. The church was damaged during the sack by Alaric I (410) and because of an earthquake (442), restored by Pope Paschal I (824) ...
Founded: 398 AD |
Location:
Rome, Italy
San Giovanni degli Eremiti
The San Giovanni degli Eremiti church dates back to the 6th century. After the establishment of the Norman domination of southern Italy, it was returned to the Christians by Roger II of Sicily who, around 1136, entrusted it to the Benedictine monks of Saint William of Vercelli. The church was extensively modified during the following centuries. A restoration held around 1880 attempted to restore its original medieval app ...
Founded: 12 |
Location:
Palermo, Italy
San Giorgio Cathedral
The Duomo of San Giorgio is a Baroque church located in Ragusa Ibla, old part of Ragusa. Its construction began in 1738 and ended in 1775. The church is one of the greatest expressions of Baroque style and religious architecture in Ragusa. It was designed by Rosario Gagliardi of Noto, an architect and a prominent figure of the then artistic movement. It stands on top of a monumental staircase and its angled position poi ...
Founded: 1738-1775 |
Location:
Ragusa, Italy
Basilica di San Fedele
The Basilica of San Fedele in Como is located in the city center and is dedicated to Saint Fidelis martyr. It derives from an earlier Christian church, dating from the seventh century, dedicated to Euphemia. The present church dates from 1120, the building is Romanesque and not just the original three naves irregular grafted onto a central plant, also irregular due to the smaller size compared to the two main apse of the ...
Founded: 1120 |
Location:
Como, Italy
Santa Maria della Pietà Church
The Church of Saint Mary of Pity (Chiesa di Santa Maria della Pietà) is a Baroque church localted in the quarter of the Kalsa, within the historic centre of Palermo. In 1495 the noble Francesco Abatellis, captain at the service of King Ferdinand II of Aragon, in the absence of heirs, staged the construction of a Benedictine monastery under the name of Santa Maria della Pietà. In 1526 the monastery was founded, but ...
Founded: 1678 |
Location:
Palermo, Italy
Santa Maria della Catena
Santa Maria della Catena church was built in 1490-1520 and designed by Matteo Carnilivari. The name derives from the presence, on one of the walls, of a chain (catena) which closed the Cala port. The work mixes late Renaissance style and Gothic-Catalan style, the latter especially visible in the three-part arcaded loggia located at the top of a staircase (added in 1845). The interior is also late Gothic, and includes ...
Founded: 1490-1520 |
Location:
Palermo, Italy
Gran Madre di Dio
The church of Gran Madre di Dio is a Neoclassic-style church located on the western bank of the Po River, facing the Ponte Vittorio Emanuele I leading into Piazza Vittorio Veneto. The church was conceived in 1814, after the defeat of Napoleon, to celebrate the return to the throne of King Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia from the Savoia family, after a 16 years long exile. The municipality immediately suggests to celebrate ...
Founded: 1814 |
Location:
Turin, Italy