Pt. 1 Tour of the churches of the historic center of Genoa: Commenda di San Giovanni di Pré e Basilica di ss Annunziata del Vastato

Our tour of the Churches of Genoa's historic center starts at the station of Genoa Piazza Principe. From there, we continue onwards to the nearby Commandery of St. John of Pré, then with the monumental Santissima Annunziata del Vastato, the Basilica of San Siro and the Basilica of Santa Maria delle Vigne. We’ll conclude our tour with a visit to the Church of Saint Ambrose and Saint Andrew. Today we will take our first steps in the Commendary of St. John of Pré and the Basilica of SS Annunziata del Vastato. Our advice is to keep your eyes open and look up!

Commenda di San Giovanni di Pré

The Commendary of St. John of Pré, build in 1180, consists of the hospice and of the characteristic overlap of two churches in which we can still witness the renovations made during the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. We can clearly see the early Romanesque architecture in the Promontorio stone* masonry of the two lower floors to which a brick one of the late fourteenth century was superimposed. In the sixteenth century, the changes desired by Brasco Salvago, according to a wall plaque visible on the loggia, involved the old two-level medieval portico, which was replaced by a three-level loggia**. The ground floor was kept very simple: a row of stone columns supports a double series of cross vaults presumably made in the 14th century. On the east wall, we can also see a large opening that connected the hall of the hospice with the lower church to ensure the participation of the sick in the religious services from their beds. On the north and south walls, we can find niches where guests could store their personal belongings; in some of them the lower stone is shaped like a basin with a hole, to drain water, thus meaning that they were used as basins for ablutions. In the lower church, there is an epigraph in Gothic marble characters at the base of the bell tower with a profile portrait of the church's founder William and the year of construction. During the restorations in the 1990s, medieval frescoes were recovered on the vault, on the walls of the right-side apse and in its access sub-arch: there are scenes of the Last Judgment datable to the early 13th century. The entrance portal of the upper church is surmounted by an 18th-century statue of the Immaculate Madonna. The construction of the entire complex is to be attributed to the Magistri Antelami . We can tell that by the particularly evident technique of workmanship and the placing of the masonry, the architectural sculptures and planimetrical installations.

Worth noting:

• - Madonna con bambino e i Santi Giovanni battista e Brigida (Madonna and Child with Saints John the Baptist and Brigid) by Giulio Benso (1592-1668)
• - Sant’Ugo che fa scaturire l’acqua dalla rupe al cospetto di San Giovanni Battista (Saint Hugh causing water to spring from the cliff in the presence of Saint John the Baptist) by Lorenzo De Ferrari (1680-1744)
• - San Giovanni e i discepoli di Lazzaro Tavarone (Saint John and the Disciples) by Lazzaro Tavarone (1556-1641) enlarged with the addition of a group of angels by Lorenzo de Ferrari
• - La Madonna in trono con i Santi Giovanni Evangelista e Giovanni (Madonna Enthroned with Saints John the Evangelist and John the Baptist) by Bernardo Castello (1557-1629)

Basilica of SS ANNUNZIATA DEL VASTATO:

The history of the area where Annunziata stands today dates back to the period from 1215 to 1219, a time when the Franciscans first settled there. The area of the Vastato/Guastato was a wide buffer zone surrounding the 1155 city wall to ensure its defensibility.

However, on that occasion, they did not lay foundations or erect walls, but abandoned the temporary buildings erected in 1228 and moved to the Castelletto area, where the monumental church of St. Francis was built.

The Annunziata area was, on the other hand, acquired by the Humiliati, who built a small Romanesque church and a convent of modest size: they would remain in that area until 1520, when the Franciscans - having had to temporarily abandon the temple in Castelletto - had a large new church built for their eponymous saint.

The new building had a Gothic structure of which memory had largely been lost, although the main structure having come down to us almost intact: in the seventeenth century, in fact, the bundle pillars and the two-color masonry were covered with polychrome marble and gilded plaster. Interestingly, it was the bombs of World War II that allowed us to rediscover the structure and the studies of Carlo Ceschi to make it known again. Even today, in the chapels of the right aisle it is still possible to discern -under the marble vestment- the ancient black and white rococo columns.

The church was dedicated to Our Lady of the Annunciation in 1537, with the transfer of the Observantines: the new occupants that further expanded the complex. The Lomellini family is credited with owe much of the church's renovations, particularly to Lorenzo Lomellini and his nephews Giacomo di Filippo, Giacomo di Nicolò, and Gio Battista di Stefano, as well as to his brother Gio Francesco. We owe the four of them the monumental complex of the Annunziata as we see it today.

The restoration lasted throughout the first half of the seventeenth century, in addition to the already mentioned marble facing, also included a renovation of the basilica's perimeter, made possible by the purchase of surrounding buildings (such as the tavern of Santa Marta, the barn of the Balbi family, and the oratory of San Tommaso) that had never been given to the friars, but became easily acquired by the flood of wealth of the Lomellini of Tabarca.

The bombs between 1943 and 1944 shattered the marbles, broke through the chapels of the left and right aisles, the choir, and the convent. Ten years after the war, efforts were made to fix the damage: shattered marbles were reassembled and frescoes were restored. The wisdom of a contemporary artist, in constant dialogue with the ancient: the professor of drawing at the “Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti Raimondo Sirotti”, who integrated Benso's large perspective frescoes, hit by bombs.

The damage, in fact, had been particularly significant and evident in what we can call the richest public gallery of Baroque art with a sacred subject in Genoa.

The Annunziata still preserves the works of 23 Genoese painters, one from the sixteenth century, twenty from the seventeenth century and two from the nineteenth century, to which six more foresti (foreigners, or people from outside Liguria) must be added.

It is therefore difficult to select only a few of the works in the church, but among them the following are truly not to be missed

• Entrata di Gesù in Gerusalemme, Giovanni Carlone (affresco, navata centrale) c. 1628)
• Assunzione della Vergine, Andrea Ansaldo (affresco, cupola) 1635
• Annunciazione, Giulio Benso (affresco, volta del presbiterio) 1640
• Ultima Cena, Giulio Cesare Procaccini (olio su tela, controfacciata), 1618
• San Pasquale Baylon in estasi davanti all’Eucarestia, Anton Maria Maragliano (legno scolpito e dipinto, altare del transetto sinistro) 1710-1713
• Allegoria della Carità, Jacopo Antonio Ponzanelli (marmo statuario, cappella Assereto dedicata a San Diego), c. 1690.

[1] Fun fact: the Magistri Antelami were monopoly builders in medieval Genoa, arriving in the city in the 11th century from the Intelvi valley (between Lake Como and Lugano). To them are attributed both housing construction and the most important religious and civil monuments (Santa Maria del Castello and the city gates) *tn: grey and black stone of limestone, typical of the so-called cave of Promontorio.

(tra il lago di Como e di Lugano). A loro sono attribuite sia l’edilizia abitativa, sia i più importanti monumenti religiosi e civili (Santa Maria del Castello e le porte della città)