Santa Maria del Quartiere is a

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

-style church in the quarter of the Oltretorrente of the city of

Parma Parma (; ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, Giuseppe Verdi, music, art, prosciutto (ham), Parmesan, cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,986 inhabitants as of 2025, ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

History

The church was built inside the medieval walls from 1604 to 1619, on the site of a prior chapel dedicated to Mary, adjacent to the quarters for troops of the Duchy, hence its name. The design has been attributed to the Ferrarese architect Giovan Battista Aleotti. Atypical for most post-

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

rectangular church naves, the nave of this church is a centralized hexagonal plan, which is more consistent with its role as a ''votive church'' built to honor an icon. The presbytery includes a ceiling fresco (1626) depicting ''Samuel anointing David as King'' by Giulio Orlandini. Above the main altar is the fresco depicting the lactating Madonna painted by Mercurio Baiardi. The cupola at the center of the church has a large and teeming fresco of the ''Trinity with angels and with the Ascended Virgin and Saints in Paradise'' (1626-1629), a work by Pier Antonio Bernabei and his pupils: his brother Alessandro and Giovanni Maria Conti della Camera. The decoration of the chapels occurred mainly in the nineteenth century, and includes works by Tommaso Bandini, Giovanni Gaibazzi, and Francesco Pescatori. The second chapel on the right has an altarpiece depicting the ''Presentation at the Temple'' by Francesco Scaramuzza.Turismo Parma
, entry on church.

References

Maria Quartiere Baroque architecture in Parma Maria Quartiere Roman Catholic churches completed in 1619 Hexagonal buildings Centralized-plan churches in Italy 1619 establishments in Italy {{EmiliaRomagna-RC-church-stub