Façade of the church. San Giuseppe is a complex of religious buildings in central

Brescia Brescia (, ; ; or ; ) is a city and (municipality) in the region of Lombardy, in Italy. It is situated at the foot of the Alps, a few kilometers from the lakes Lake Garda, Garda and Lake Iseo, Iseo. With a population of 199,949, it is the se ...

Lombardy The Lombardy Region (; ) is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in northern Italy and has a population of about 10 million people, constituting more than one-sixth of Italy's population. Lombardy is ...

, northern Italy. It includes a church and a monastery.

History

In 1515, the Observant Friars Minor (

Franciscans The Franciscans are a group of related organizations in the Catholic Church, founded or inspired by the Italian saint Francis of Assisi. They include three independent religious orders for men (the Order of Friars Minor being the largest conte ...

) had acquired this property in the centre of Brescia, and by 1520 had built a convent at the site. There had been a monastery of San Francesco in the then outskirts of the city. Construction of the church began in 1519 and was generally complete by 1541. A third cloister for the monastery was completed in 1610. In 1797, the monasteries were suppressed, but the monastery of San Giuseppe was allowed to continue to operate. In 1810 the order was abolished in the region, and the convent expropriated. The church remained active. It was however suppressed from 1866 to 1896. In 1973 one of the cloisters was provided to the

Diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, 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 Roman province, prov ...

to create a museum. The church, whose façade is one of the few examples of Renaissance architecture in the quarter, houses frescoes and decoration including fourteen ''Stations of the Cross'' of (

Via Crucis The Stations of the Cross or the Way of the Cross, also known as the Via Dolorosa, Way of Sorrows or the , are a series of fourteen images depicting Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ on the day of Crucifixion of Jesus, his crucifixion and acc ...

) (1713) by

Giovanni Antonio Capello Giovanni Antonio Capello (1699, in Brescia – 1741) was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque period, active mainly in Brescia. He was a pupil of the painters Pompeo Ghitti (1631–1703), later Lorenzo Pasinelli in Bologna, and finally in Rome ...

and the Sant'Apollonia Altarpiece by Scalvini (1761). The church houses the tombs of

Gasparo da Salò Gasparo da Salò (20 May 154214 April 1609) is the name given to Gasparo Bertolotti, one of the earliest violin makers and an expert double bass player. Around 80 of his instruments are known to have survived to the present day: violins (sma ...

, one of the inventors of the modern

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

and

Benedetto Marcello Benedetto Giacomo Marcello (; 31 July or 1 August 1686 – 24 July 1739) was an Italian composer, writer, advocate, magistrate, and teacher. Life Born in Venice, Benedetto Marcello was a member of the noble Marcello family and in his composit ...

, a Baroque musician. The

organs In a multicellular organism, an organ is a collection of tissues joined in a structural unit to serve a common function. In the hierarchy of life, an organ lies between tissue and an organ system. Tissues are formed from same type cells to a ...

in the church is among the oldest in Lombardy.

References

{{Coord, 45.5407, N, 10.2204, E, type:landmark_region:IT, display=title

Giuseppe Giuseppe is the Italian form of the given name Joseph, from Latin Josephus, Iōsēphus from Ancient Greek Ἰωσήφ (Iōsḗph), from Hebrew יוסף. The feminine form of the name is Giuseppa or Giuseppina (given name), Giuseppina. People wit ...