Santa Maria della Carità, Bologna
Santa Maria della Carità is a Renaissance-style Roman Catholic church in central Bologna, Italy.
History[edit]
By mid-13th century, an administrator under Pope Gregory IX, founded a hospital at an adjacent lot. For a time, it was an orphanage. A chapel, attached to a hospital, existed by 1378. From the 15th to the 18th century, the church and convent were attached to a Franciscan order.[1]
The present layout dates from 1583, by designs of Pietro Fiorini. It was enlarged with the addition of four large chapels in 1680 under the designs of Giovanni Battista Bergonzoni, a Franciscan theologian.
The interior is decorated with paintings by prominent Baroque painters. In the first chapel on the right is a Visitation by Il Galanino. In the 3rd chapel on the right is a Vision of St Elizabeth (1685) by Marc Antonio Franceschini. The third chapel to the left has a Holy Family with St Anthony of Padua(1680) by Felice Cignani.[2] The most prominent work in the church, in the 1st chapel on the left, is the altarpiece depicting the Crucifixion (1583) by a 23-year-old Annibale Carracci. The painting originally was found in the church of San Nicolò di San Felice.[3]
Other artists include Giovanni Valesio; Flaminio Torre (Virgin and Saints); Giovanni Battista Fiorini; Antonio Crespi; Luigi Quaini; and Luigi Crespi. The sacristy, designed also by Bergonzoni, has paintings by Gaetano Gandolfi, Jacopo Alessandro Calvi, and sculptures by Giovanni Francesco Bezzi.
References[edit]
- ^ Le chiese parrocchiali della diocesi di Bologna, ritratte e descritte, Volume IV, by Bologna diocese, Lithography by Enrico Corty, Published by San Tommaso D'Aquino, Bologna, 1851. #40.
- ^ Emilia Romagna, by the Touring Club Italiano, Touring editore srl, 1991, page 213.
- ^ Bologna Welcome Official Tourist site.