I The church, entrusted to Gerolomini monks towards the half of the XV century and built again since the 20th June 1463 with the laying of the foundation stone, which can still be seen behind the main altar, was wanted by Bianca Maria Visconti as a memento of her marriage Francesco Sforza, which took place in the simple little church of Sigismondo, dedicated to the Vallombrosani friars. in 1492. The church, with its only nave and lateral chapels, was frescoed starting from 1535 and it represented one of the most remarkable decorative groups of the sixteen-century Lombard mannerism in the northern Italy and it is stylistically harmonious and organic in spite of the intervention of different painters. Camillo Boccaccino began the decoration of the nave on the apse walls with the Christ in Glory and the same painter realized the whole decoration of the presbytery with the wall frescoes of Christ, the adultery and the Resurrection of Lazzarus.

Looking down the presbytery there is the transept, an area occu-pied by the monks' cemetery and the refined wood unit of the choir. The inside decoration of the church continued during the following decades: Giulio Campi frescoed the transept vaults with bible stories in 1542, but above all he achieved his masterpiece, in the end bay of the central nave, with the scene of Whit Sunday, with a prospect work of spatial illusion from the bottom to the top.

The cycle of frescos of the central nave was achieved by a group of different painters, among which Giulio Campi, Bernardino Campi and Bernardino Gatti. Also the lateral chapels are an example of painting greatness of the Cremonese artistic sixteen-century: Bernardino Campi painted the big canvas over the altar of the third left chapel, dated 1566, while Antonio Campi fully achieved the fifth chapel, both the painting and sculptural part, dedicated to Saint John the Baptist.

It is worth calling your attention to the left wall, dated 1577, which represents The dinner at Simon's house, impressive for the diagonal compositional arrangement, creating a deep perspective, which can be fully enjoyed by one of the choir stalls/seats beyond the gate of the presbytery. Always by Antonio Campi is the piece of the main altar portraying the decollation of St John datable to the same time as the previous fresco but stylistically rather differ- ent because there is the research of the innovation of the artificial lightening in a night scene, an effect seen and studied by Caravaggio.

The following chapel had been started by Camillo Boccaccino, prematurely deceased in 1546 during the decoration works, which were later entrusted to Bernardino Gatti, who painted the canvas above the main altar with the Annunciation, while by Camillo there are two tondos left with Mary's birth and the Introduction of Mary to the Temple, which were ripped off and brought back on canvas during the reinforcing works of the walls in 1963. On the opposite side of the nave your attention must be drawn by the fifth chapel which hosts an altar-piece painted by Giulio Campi in 1568, and the very refined vault carried out by Bernardino Campi in 1546, author of the altar-piece of the following chapel 100 Next to church there is the cloister of the old convent, which was finished in 1505. The Sacca family from Cremona had a door built, which linked the cloister to the church in 1536. It is entirely made of oak and it is decorated by the heraldic symbols of Vis-conti-Sforza family. On the opposite side there is the door to the old monks' refectory, inside which you can see a Last supper painted by Tommaso Aleni from Cremona in 1508 and which re-proposes the new icography that Leonardo had realised for the Last Supper in Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.