Piacenza Cathedral (), fully the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta e Santa Giustina, is a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

cathedral A cathedral is a church (building), church that contains the of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, Annual conferences within Methodism, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually s ...

Piacenza Piacenza (; ; ) is a city and (municipality) in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Piacenza, eponymous province. As of 2022, Piacenza is the ninth largest city in the region by population, with more ...

, Italy. The current structure was built between 1122 and 1233 and is one of the most valuable examples of a Romanesque cathedral in

northern Italy Northern Italy (, , ) is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of Italy. The Italian National Institute of Statistics defines the region as encompassing the four Northwest Italy, northwestern Regions of Italy, regions of Piedmo ...

. The dedication is to the

Assumption of the Virgin Mary The Assumption of Mary is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII defined it on 1 November 1950 in his apostolic constitution as follows: It leaves open the question of whether Mary died or whether she was ra ...

and to Saint Justina. It is the seat of the

diocese of Piacenza-Bobbio In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associated ...

Architecture

The cathedral has a total external length of 85 m, and a façade height of 32 m, dimensions which make it the largest Romanesque church in

Emilia-Romagna Emilia-Romagna (, , both , ; or ; ) is an Regions of Italy, administrative region of northern Italy, comprising the historical regions of Emilia (region), Emilia and Romagna. Its capital is Bologna. It has an area of , and a population of 4.4 m ...

. The façade, in Veronese pink marble and gilded stone, is horizontally divided by a gallery that dominates the three portals, decorated with capitals and Romanesque statues. The interior has a nave and two aisles, divided by twenty-five massive pillars. Its noteworthy frescoes were made in the 14th-16th centuries by

Camillo Procaccini 300px, ''Nativity'' by Camillo Procaccini Camillo Procaccini (3 March 1561 at Parma – 21 August 1629) was an Italian painter. He has been posthumously referred to as the ''Vasari of Lombardy'', for his prolific Mannerist fresco decoration. Bo ...

and

Ludovico Carracci Ludovico (or Lodovico) Carracci ( , , ; 21 April 1555 – 13 November 1619) was an Italian early-Baroque painter, etcher, and printmaker from Bologna. His works are characterized by a strong mood invoked by broad gestures and flickering li ...

, while the frescos inside the dome are by Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli, "il Morazzone", and

Guercino Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (February 8, 1591 – December 22, 1666),Miller, 1964 better known as (il) Guercino (), was an Italian Baroque painter and draftsman from Cento in the Emilia region, who was active in Rome and Bologna. The vigorous n ...

. The presbytery has a wooden sculpture from 1479, wooden choirstalls by Giangiacomo da Genova (1471) and 15th-century statues of the Lombard school. The

crypt A crypt (from Greek κρύπτη (kryptē) ''wikt:crypta#Latin, crypta'' "Burial vault (tomb), vault") is a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or other building. It typically contains coffins, Sarcophagus, sarcophagi, or Relic, religiou ...

, on the Greek cross plan, has 108 Romanesque small columns and is home to the relics of Santa Giustina, Saint Justina of Padua, who was co-patron of Piacenza from the ninth century; to her was dedicated the first cathedral, ''Domus Justinae'', which collapsed in 1117 after an earthquake.

History

Brooklyn Museum - The Cathedral of Piacenza - Edward Lamson Henry - overall

Few remains can be traced of the earlier paleochristian

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica (Greek Basiliké) was a large public building with multiple functions that was typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek Eas ...

, as Piacenza was razed by

Totila Totila, original name Baduila (died 1 July 552), was the penultimate King of the Ostrogoths, reigning from 541 to 552 AD. A skilled military and political leader, Totila reversed the tide of the Gothic War (535–554), Gothic War, recovering b ...

in 546, during the Gothic War. A document of 1123 describes Bishop Sigifredo of Piacenza (997–1031) as its "founder". During its history the cathedral was host to several minor composers as

maestro di cappella ( , , ), from German (chapel) and (master), literally "master of the chapel choir", designates the leader of an ensemble of musicians. Originally used to refer to somebody in charge of music in a chapel, the term has evolved considerably in i ...

including

Francesco Maria Bazzani Francesco Maria Bazzani or Bassani (c. 1650 – c. 1700) was an Italian baroque composer. Francesco was a member of the musical Bassani family, of whom Giovanni Battista Bassani is the best remembered today. He is to be distinguished from another ...

, and

Giuseppe Nicolini Giuseppe Nicolini may refer to: * Giuseppe Nicolini (composer) (1762–1842), Italian composer * Giuseppe Placido Nicolini Monsignor Giuseppe Placido Maria Nicolini O.S.B. (1877–1973), born Villazzano, Italy, was the Roman Catholic Bishop ...

References

Bibliography

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Buildings and structures completed in 1233 Churches completed in the 1230s 13th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Italy Roman Catholic churches in Piacenza

Romanesque architecture in Piacenza Cathedrals in Emilia-Romagna