Discover the Magnificent Cathedral of San Pietro in Bologna | Guide & History
The main church in Bologna is the Cathedral of San Pietro. It is known for the procession of the Madonna di San Luca, which happens every May, and for the bell tower, which is 70 meters high and can be seen by visitors.
The St. Peter-dedicated Metropolitan Cathedral of Bologna is on Via Indipendenza, not far from Piazza Maggiore. So, San Pietro is the city’s most important church. Sometimes, people confuse it with the Basilica of San Petronio.
History
Due to reconstructions and renovations, the building has had many different architectural styles over the years.
But the first stone was probably laid between the 10th and 11th centuries, when the area was probably going to be home to a complex for the Arian cult, which was brought to Ravenna by the emperor Theodoric in the 5th century AD. This complex included the church, the bell tower, and a baptistery.
But nothing of San Pietro’s original building remains. After a fire in 1141, it was completely rebuilt in the Romanesque style with bricks.
Sources say that the front of the new church was tripartite and salient, or that it had a rising rhythm on different levels.
Also on the south side was a marble portal called the “Gate of the Lions” because it had two red marble lions holding up columns on either side of the entrance. After the building was torn down in the 1600s, the lions were turned into stoups and put on either side of the entrance door, where they are still there today.
But the church-related calamities don’t stop there…
In fact, after the fire in 1141, there was a strong earthquake that did a lot of damage to the building. In 1222, the college of canons had to order new building work because of this.
When it was finished in 1234, the cathedral of San Pietro was bigger than the ones that came before it. This was because it was built at the same time as the grand basilicas of San Domenico and San Francesco.
In the centuries that followed, the cathedral got new paintings and the title “underground” from Pope Gregory XII in 1582, which was given to the most important episcopal churches in an ecclesiastical province.
In 1605, architects Floriano Ambrosini and Cosimo Morelli finished the last major renovation of the building. The baroque facade we still see today was designed by Alfonso Torreggiani in the middle of the eighteenth century.
The visit to the Metropolitan Cathedral
It is a large, impressive building made of red bricks and white marble inserts. However, it is hard to see it in its entirety because it is on Via Indipendenza and there is no space in front of it.
On the other hand, if you walk down the street, you can often see the cathedral of San Pietro’s grand interior, especially in the summer when the main portal opens outward. At the entrance, the visitor is welcomed into a space with a nave and side chapels that connect. The large volumes of the barrel vault and the large windows give the space a lot of light.
The side chapels, which have five on each side, have some interesting works of art. For example, Alfonso Lombardi made a set of six terracotta sculptures in the 1520s called “The Lamentation over the Dead Christ,” which can be seen in the first chapel on the right as you enter the church.
The sculpture group reminds me of Niccol dell’Arca’s Lamentation, which was made for the church of Santa Maria della Vita a few decades earlier and has the same name. It is different from that piece because the people in it are showing more emotional control.
The Annunciation of Mary by Ludovico Carracci, painted the year he died (1619) in the large lunette above the altar, and the Dimora Celeste by Prospero Fontana (1579) on the vault of the high altar are two examples of the paintings inside St. Peter’s. A wooden crucifix from the 12th century can also be found in this part of the church.
The Cathedral Treasure Museum, which is only open by appointment, is also in St. Peter’s. It has valuable sacred objects and vestments from the 15th to the 20th centuries.