The cathedral of Cremona

It was started in 1.100 and enlarged in 1200 and 1300. There is no certain news about early Christian churches prior to the cathedral. Nonetheless, it is plausible that two stood there before 26th August 1.107 when, as the foundation stone witnesses, the building works started. As told several decades later by the bishop Sicardo, it was an earthquake that interrupted the works in 1.117, which were restarted in 1.129. It's still not certain how much of the building was destroyed by the earthquake but it is sure that plenty of the material of the old building was re-used, including some decorative elements such as the prophets of the main door.

At the beginning of the XIV century the Torrazzo had to be already completed, originally it was a town tower with de- fensive aim but later it became the very high clock tower of the Cathedral.

Probably since 1.413 the vaults of the lateral naves, of the central nave and of the transept were built. The fresco cycle of the Old Testament was painted in those years on the vaults of the transepts and it was ended in 1,430. The stories of Joseph and his brothers (South transept) and those of Jacob, Rebecca and Esau (North transept) are worth your attention because they are one of the few western examples of representation of that time of the Old Testament inside a holy building.

At the end of the century the super elevation of the central part of the façade of the Cathedral began by adding the two side volutes and the gable that now characterize it.

Among the precious fittings that enriched the cathedral in that period we must recommend the Great silver cross dating back to 1.478 and the splendid rectory choir, which was carved and inlayed by Giovanni Maria da Piadena, called Il Platina.

The most important artistic season of the Cathedral was inaugurated at the very beginning of the X VI century when the big painting of the apse and the walls of the central nave began. The cycle of frescos started in 1506 by Boccaccio Boccaccino and continued with the interventions of Gianfrancesco Bembo, Altobello Melone. Girolamo Romanino, il Pordenone and Bernardino e Antonio Campi. The monumental altarpiece of Our Lady of the Assumption was commissioned to Bernardino Gatti at the end of the century.

The church of S.sigismondo

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.

Church of S. Abbondio

Church of S. Rita

Church of S. Maria Maddalena

Church of S. Michele