A church at the site of current San Francesco, dedicated to St John, was present since perhaps the seventh-century, since nearby Christian burial appear to date from then. In around 1244, the church began to be administered by priests from the Cathedral of Acqui. Around 1410, it became associated with the Franciscan order, and rebuilt and rededicated. The convent was suppressed in 1802, and the church was affiliated with the Confraternity of San Giuseppe, who briefly changed the name of the church. In 1824, the Franciscans returned, and they rebuilt the church in a neoclassic-style, adding the Facade, under the design of Ferraris in 1835, completed in 1854.
Parts of the church are ancient. The bell-tower and apse date to the 15th century. But other parts reflect refurbishments along the centuries, including the 19th-century reconstruction. The broad brick facade (1835–1854) shows eclectic styles with a triangular lower tympanum and monumental order pilasters.
The interior houses an Immaculate Conception by il Moncalvo; an Adoration of the Magi by Raffael Angelo Soleri; and a Madonna and Child with Saint Francis and Antony of Padua by Pietro Beccaria. The ceilings were frescoed by the 19th-century painter Pietro Ivaldi, detto il Muto di Toleto.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.