San Francesco is a medieval

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 let ...

church in

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 Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. It was built for a Franciscan order in a style described as Lombard Gothic.

History

The church and adjacent monastery were built for the

Friars Minor The Order of Friars Minor (also called the Franciscans, the Franciscan Order, or the Seraphic Order; postnominal abbreviation OFM) is a mendicant Catholic religious order, founded in 1209 by Francis of Assisi. The order adheres to the teachi ...

order, between 1278 and 1363 under the patronage of the

Ghibelline The Guelphs and Ghibellines (, , ; it, guelfi e ghibellini ) were factions supporting the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, respectively, in the Italian city-states of Central Italy and Northern Italy. During the 12th and 13th centuries, rival ...

Umbertino Landi. It soon became a convent for nuns of the Clarissan order. From this church in 1547, Count Agostino Landi addressed the assembled people to announce that he and other nobles had murdered Pier Luigi Farnese, Duke of Parma. During the Napoleonic period despite a brief conversion of parts of the complex into armory and then a hospital, the church remained open. For a time it was dedicated to the early Christian martyr, St Napoleon. The church was returned to the clerics, but by 1810, they had left the convent. In 1848, the annexation of Piacenza to the Kingdom of Sardinia was proclaimed from this church. The facade is in simple brick, but the interior church was amply decorated with frescoes and icons. The layout of this church resembles the plan of the basilica of San Francesco in Bologna, including the

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an '' exedra''. ...

with radiating chapels. The façade has two buttresses, a rose window, spire and pinnacles. Only a porch remains of the adjacent monastery. The church contains frescoes from the 14th and 15th centuries. The lunette of the portal has a sculpture of the ''St. Francis and the Stigmata'' (1480 ). The dome of the ''Chapel of the Immaculate Conception'' was decorated with frescoes (1597) by Giovanni Battista Trotti. The church also has altarpieces by Il Malosso (''Annunciation'' and ''Birth of Mary''), Bernardo Castelli, Clemente Ruta, Bartolomeo Schedone,

Carlo Sacchi Carlo Sacchi (1617–1706) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. He was born in Pavia and trained with a painter Carlo Antonio Rossi in Milan,Filippo De Boni, ''Biografia degli artisti: Volume unico'', Venezia 1840 then traveled to Rome ...

, Carlo Francesco Nuvolone,

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

Bernardino Gatti Bernardino Gatti (c.1495 – 22 February 1576) was an Italian painter of the Renaissance, active mainly in Parma and Cremona. He is also commonly called il Sojaro. He was born in or near Pavia or Cremona. His early apprenticeship is unclear, ...

. Giuseppe Sacchini is buried in the church.La patria; geografia dell' Italia: Provincia di Parma e Piacenza
by Gustavo Chiesi, Torino, 1902, page 172.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Francesco, Piacenza Churches completed in 1363 Roman Catholic churches in Piacenza Gothic architecture in Emilia-Romagna 13th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Italy Christian monasteries established in the 13th century Francesco Piacenza