The Church

The present building of Santa Maria di Castello is the three-nave Romanesque basilica with transept and three apses built in the first quarter of the 12th century by antelamic workers. The church’s primitive appearance was partly altered by renovations in the 15th and 16th centuries. 

The façade, tripartite with pilasters and crowned with hanging arches, has its only decorative element in the central portal, which uses as its lintel a Roman frame from the 3rd century AD with leaves and griffins.

The naves, already covered with wooden trusses, were vaulted around 1468 with rib crosses, of semicircular section for the central one and square section for the side ones. Ten columns and fifteen capitals are reused and date from the 3rd century AD.

The transept still has the original vaults resting on pillars. The construction of the five chapels in the left aisle dates to the second half of the 15th century, while the five on the right date to the 16th century. The church floor was lowered to its present level at the end of the 16th century. The Romanesque bell tower is inserted on the left arm of the transept.

The side apses underwent interventions in the late 16th and early 17th centuries and have lost their primitive character both inside and out. The central one, enlarged and extended in two stages, was adapted to contain a large choir.

Its roof and dome, in the view from the top of the Embriaci tower or from the buildings above, give SantaMaria di Castello an illusory appearance of a 16th-century church today.

The Magistri Antelami

Having arrived in Genoa towards the end of the 11th seolo from the Intelvi valley and the Como area, they were the first importers into the city of the Romanesque architectural language and took the form of a guild of builders and stone masons: thanks in part to special privileges, they were able to monopolize urban architecture and create important monuments, including the city gates and the complex of San Giovanni di Prè.

At Santa Maria di Castello their ability to use reused Roman material is exceptional.

Interior

Restoration in the years 2005-2007 made it possible to rediscover on the counter façade the church’s internal Romanesque portal, concealed by the superimposition of the 15th-century portal of the sacristy appropriately enlarged with the addition of 19th-century ashlars.

To the left of the portal is Madonna and Child between Saints Dominic presenting Blessed Raymond of Capua and Peter Martyr, attributed to Lorenzo Fasolo (1463-ante 1518), a detached fresco from the destroyed monastery of St. Dominic, as is the 18th-century niche to the right of the portal containing the wooden crucifix known as the Providence, datable to the 15th century. Above the fresco is a 15th-century keystone depicting the Resurrection of Christ.

Two canvases by Francesco Sigismondo Boccaccino (1660-1750) have been relocated above the eighteenth-century compasses of the side doors: on the left the Crucifix speaks to St. Peter Martyr; on the right St. Peter Martyr reattaches the severed foot to a young man.

On the right wall of the church, the 15th-century portal of access to the sacristy has been reassembled here, transferred from the counterfaçade by removing the 19th-century additions; high above the portal is the Nativity, attributed to a painterredi Caravaggesque scope.

On the right side of the church are five chapels.

The first in 1716 was dedicated to St. Pius V: at the altar the canvas depicting the Crucifix evading the kiss of St. PiusV is by Alessandro Gherardini (1655-1723); on the pediment the oval with Mary Magdalene is by Giuseppe Palmieri (c. 1677-1740).

The second chapel contains the Martyrdom of Saint Blaise by Aurelio Lomi (1556-1622).

The third chapel, built in 1524 and dedicated to Saint Antoninus, a Dominican and archbishop of Florence, retains its original 16th-century layout. In the vault frescoes with God the Father blessing amid decorative motifs made in the third decade of the 16th century; in the upper part of the walls two Scenes from the Life of King David, of a more archaic setting; on the left, marble epigraph commemorating the chapel’s foundation. A covering of “laggioni,” ceramic tiles with Sevillian motifs, possibly of Ligurian production, concludes the lower part of the walls: on the left is depicted St. John the Baptist, on the right St. George and the Dragon. By Pietro Francesco Sacchi of Pavia (1485-1528) is the Madonna Odigitria with Saints JohnBaptist, Antonino of Florence and Nicholas of Tolentino, signed and dated 1526, set in Tuscan-style woodwork and supported by a predella painted by Sacchi himself with the Lamentation of Christ and Saints. Recent restoration has restored the brilliant coloring of the altarpiece and woodwork previously concealed under a layer of dirt, as well as the restoration of the marble apparatus has uncovered its brightly colored decoration.

The fourth chapel is dedicated to St. Peter of Verona and houses the altarpiece depicting the Martyrdom of the Saint, by Bernardo Castello, signed and dated 1597.

The fifth chapel houses the Assumption of Mary by Aurelio Lomi (1601).

In the right transept is the funeral monument of Demetrio Canevari, physician and bibliophile, executed by Tommaso Orsolino (1591?-1675) between 1626 and 1628.

The head chapel of the right nave was renovated in its present form in the years 1601-1604 and dedicated to Saints Dominic and Hyacinth: on the side walls the funerary monuments of husband and wife Benedetto Giordano and Laura Della Chiesa by Battista Casella; on the vault frescoes by Bernardo Castello with the Eternal Father and two episodes from the life of St. Hyacinthus; and on the altar Aurelio Lomi’s canvas depicting St. Hyacinthus receiving the habit of the Order from the hands of St. Dominic in the presence of the archbishop of Krakow, his uncle.

The main chapel was enlarged to its present form in the last decades of the 16th century: the wooden choir stalls and the funerary monuments of Luca and Mariettina Giustiniani on the left and Alessandro Giustiniani and Lelia DeFranchi on the right date from this period.
The high altar, rebuilt after the bombing of Genoa in 1684, is crowned by the Assumption, a marble group by Anton Domenico Parodi (1644-1703).

In the 1770s the head chapel of the left aisle was dedicated to Saint Rose of Lima, depicted in the altarpiece by Domenico Piola (1627-1703) in veneration of the Madonna and Child; the frescoes in the vault, depicting the Baptism of Christ surrounded by four portfolios with Dominican saints, which can be dated to the late 16th century, were heavily repainted in the 19th century; under the mensa, a lying statue of Blessed Giacomo da Varazze, whose relics were kept here for about a century.

Set in an altar in polychrome marble from the first half of the 17th century located in the left transept is a canvas by Gio.Benedetto Castiglione known as Il Grechetto (1609-1664) depicting the Miracle of Soriano: in 1530 in this Calabrian locality, where a monastery had recently been founded, the Madonna and saints Mary Magdalene and Catherine of Alexandria are said to have appeared in 1530 to a Dominican converso handing him an image of St. Dominic, of which the new monastery was still lacking. Above on the left wall is the large canvas painted for the counter façade by Francesco Sigismondo Boccaccino (1660-1750) depicting the Miracle of the Loaves.
In the access area to the Chapel of the Crucifix are the funerary monuments of two Dominican archbishops of Genoa, both of whom are buried at Santa Maria di Castello: on the left the archbishop’s funeral monument: that of Giulio Vincenzo Gentile sculpted by Filippo Parodi (1630-1702), on the right that of Nicolò Maria De Franchi by Pasquale Bocciardo (c. 1705 – 1790 / 1791); on the archway to the chapel the Pieta, a fresco by Gregorio De Ferrari (1647-1726).

On the altar of the chapel, a copy in the appearance assumed in the Baroque era of the venerated medieval wooden Cristo Moro crucifix currently placed at the new high altar (built in 1985 to a design by Cesare Fera).

Nineteenth-century frescoes by Antonio Varni (1840-1908), marble and majolica facings, medallions of the ViaCrucis, and four funerary monuments of Brignole and Brignole-Sale family figures. The marble altar and tabernacle were executed in the 1960s to a design by Cesare Fera.

Unlike in the right aisle, where due to the presence of the cloister the altars were set against the wall, the wall of the left aisle was broken through in the second half of the 15th century for the construction of five chapels.
The fifth chapel is dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary: the wooden statue in the niche above the altar is attributable to Pasquale Navone (1746-1791); the stucco decoration, frescoes by Giacomo Ulisse Borzino, and medallions around the arches with the mysteries of the Rosary by Marco Cesare Danielli are from the years 1843-1845. On the side walls two frescoed medallions with the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple and The Dispute of Jesus with the Doctors are by Giovan Battista Carlone (1603-post 1676).

The four canvases depict on the right The Marriage of the Virgin by Domenico Piola and The Nativity of Mary by an unknown Genoese (Giovanni Battista Baiardo?), and on the left The Flight into Egypt and The Presentation of Mary at the Temple, both attributed to Luciano Borzone (1590-1645).

In 1797 the fourth chapel was dedicated to Blessed Sebastano Maggi da Brescia, a Dominican who died in 1497 in fame of sanctity in the monastery of Santa Maria di Castello: the painting by Francesco Zignago in fact depicts the arrival of the Blessed in front of the church. On the third centenary of the Blessed’s own death, his mortal remains were moved under the altar table.

The frescoes in the side lunettes and vault, depicting episodes of devotion to the Blessed, are attributed to Gio. BattistaCorradi (19th century). The four panels painted on slate depicting the Visitation, the Adoration of the Shepherds, the Presentation in the Temple and the Dispute of Jesus with the Doctors are by Andrea Semino (1525?-1594).

In the third chapel is a painting by DomenicoPiola (1627-1703) depicting St. Thomas Aquinas in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament composing the Corpus Christi office.

On the left, under the 15th-century marble canopy is the polyptych of the Annunciation executed by 1469 by Giovanni Mazone (news from 1453, died between 1510 and 1512): set in gilded wooden woodwork, it consists of the central panel surrounded by two compartments, with Saints James and John the Baptist in one, and Saints Dominic and Sebastian in the other, an upper register with Calvary between Saints John the Evangelist and Rochus, and a predella depicting the Marriage of the Virgin and the Visitation, the Nativity and the Adoration of the Magi, the Flight into Egypt and the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple.

The second chapel is dedicated to St. Vincent Ferrer.The altarpiece by Giovanni Battista Paggi (1554-1627) depicts The Healing of St. Vincent; on the right Preaching of St. Vincent as a Child attributed to Luciano Borzone(1590-1645) and on the left The Queen of Aragon Attends the Ecstasy of St. Vincent by Andrea Ansaldo (1584-1638), who also painted the frescoes in the lunettes; the decoration of the dome and the sails is by Giovanni Carlone (1584-1630).

The first chapel is dedicated to St. Catherine of Siena and was used as a baptistery in 1874 using a sarcophagus datable to the late 3rd to early 4th century AD. By the “Master of the Low Eyes” is the central compartment of the polyptych with the Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine of Alexandria and St. Catherine of Siena between Saints Stephen, Lawrence, Dominic and Peter Martyr (c. 1480), for the remaining parts the work of two other painters. The frescoes with stories of St. Catherine reveal relationships with the early activity of Nicolò Corso (1446-1513) and can be dated between 1474 and the mid-1480s.

Captions and bibliography

• R. A. Vigna, L’antica collegiata di Santa Maria di Castello in Genova, Rossi, Genova 1859.
• R. A. Vigna, Illustrazione storica, artistica ed epigrafica dell’antichissima chiesa di Santa Maria di Castello in Genova, Lanata, Genova 1864.
• E. Poleggi, Santa Maria di Castello e il romanico a Genova, Sagep, Genova 1973.
• Santa Maria di Castello, a cura dell’Ufficio Musei e Beni Culturali della Regione Liguria, Edizioni Corigraf, Genova 1989.
  Chiesa di Santa Maria di Castello, Sagep Editrice, Genova 1990.
• D. Sanguineti, Santa Maria di Castello. Chiesa e convento, Sagep, Genova 1994.
• Enrico Pinna, Il museo dei marmi, delle reliquie e dei dipinti, in Cinque chiese e un oratorio, a cura di Gianni Bozzo, San Giorgio Editrice, Genova 2004, pp. 42-45.
• C. Di Fabio, Domenico Gagini da Bissone a Firenze e a Genova, con una postilla per suo nipote Elia in Genova e l’Europa continentale. Opere, artisti, committenti, collezionisti. Austria, Germania, Svizzera, a cura di P. Boccardo e C. Di Fabio, Silvana Editoriale, Milano 2004, pp. 49-71.
• S. Romano, Giusto di Ravensburg e i pittori svizzero-tedeschi a S. Maria di Castello in Genova e l’Europa continentale. Opere, artisti, committenti, collezionisti. Austria, Germania, Svizzera, a cura di P. Boccardo e C. Di Fabio, Silvana Editoriale, Milano 2004, pp. 33-47.
• C. Gilardi, Le programme décoratif d’un couvent de l’Observance dominicane de lombardie: Santa Maria di Castello à Gênes, 1442-1526, in Les dominicains et l’image. De la Provence à Gênes XIIIe-XVIIIe siècles, Serre Editeur, Nice 2006, pp. 83-103.
• Immagini del museoLudovico Brea, Pala di Ognissanti, 1513