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

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denomination ...

Piacenza Piacenza (; egl, label= Piacentino, Piaṡëinsa ; ) is a city and in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, and the capital of the eponymous province. As of 2022, Piacenza is the ninth largest city in the region by population, with over ...

, 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. 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 in 1950 in his apostolic constitution ''Munificentissimus Deus'' as follows: We proclaim and define it to be a dogma revealed by Go ...

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 associate ...

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 egl, Emigliàn (man) egl, Emiglièna (woman) rgn, Rumagnòl (man) rgn, Rumagnòla (woman) it, Emiliano (man) it, Emiliana (woman) or it, Romagnolo (man) it, Romagnola (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title ...

. 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. Bor ...

and

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

, while the frescos inside the dome are by Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli, "il Morazzone", and Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, best known as "Guercino". 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 Latin ''crypta'' "vault") is a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or other building. It typically contains coffins, sarcophagi, or religious relics. Originally, crypts were typically found below the main apse of a chur ...

, 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 is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building gave its name ...

, 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, recovering by 543 almost all the t ...

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 (, also , ) from German ''Kapelle'' (chapel) and ''Meister'' (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 ha ...

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 (1877–1973), Roman Catholic bishop * Giuseppe Nicolini (writer) Giuseppe Nicolini (28 October 1788 – 26 August 1855) was ...

References

Bibliography

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Churches completed in 1233 13th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Italy Roman Catholic churches in Piacenza

Romanesque architecture in Piacenza Cathedrals in Emilia-Romagna