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| A Plain Bologna Church A Couple of Blocks from our Apartment |
Of course, I exaggerate: there’s not a church on every corner, but certainly there’s one on every block and square. We arrived in Bologna, Italy late in the afternoon, and after settling in, catching up on email, and a short nap, we headed out for a walk, dinner, and wine. Within a block of our apartment is an old building set back from the street and crammed into the middle of the existing buildings. It has a cross on the top and looks like a church, but it was unusual on the outside in that it looked like the front was not finished. The stone facade, including columns, stopped just over the door, while the rest looked like brown brick. It was just plain and a little odd looking. We commented on it and moved on.
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| The Basilica of St Petronius |
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| The Parochial Church of San Giovanni in Monte (St John of the Mountain) |
After dinner, we enjoyed a paseo-style walk towards the main square (palazzo). We passed another church just steps from our restaurant, and again the front was bricked and plain, but at least it looked like it was finished. We got to the square and there was the huge Basilica of St. Petronius–originally intended to be larger than St. Peter’s in Rome until the pope got wind of it–and it too looked like it was unfinished: ugly brown brick at the top with beautiful stone and columns at the bottom. We couldn’t go in because it was late, so we wandered along a few side streets and saw a few more plain-looking churches.
We turned towards our apartment and came across the church by the restaurant. There was a crowd standing outside waiting to get in. Apparently there was a concert about to start. We decided to go in and have a look and listen. Stepping through the ugly, plain doors and voila! We were in an amazingly beautiful space, where every inch was covered with carvings, paintings, or some decoration!
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| The Dome of the Sanctuary of Santa Maria della Vita |
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| Details Around the Dome |
We had forgotten the extreme beauty of Italian churches. After seeing a lot of bare, minimally-decorated Catholic Churches in Spain and a lot of plain minimally-decorated Anglican churches in the UK, this church was a feast for the eyes!
We spent one whole day in Bologna checking out churches. We lost count somewhere around fifteen. You never know what’s hidden behind those plain wooden doors!
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| A Michelangelo Angel Standing Guard Over the Remains of Saint Dominic, Founder of the Dominican Order |
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| Replica of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Basilica of Saint Stephen, 7 churches in 1 |
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| The Crucified Christ, his Cross atop a Roman Column Signifying Christianity’s Triumph over Paganism |
