Tempio Civico della Beata Vergine Incoronata: A Civic Renaissance Church in Lodi
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.8
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Duchy of Milan, Habsburg, Holy Roman Empire, Italian, Spanish
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page12 sections
History
The Tempio Civico della Beata Vergine Incoronata is a Roman Catholic church in Lodi, Italy, dedicated to the Coronation of the Virgin Mary. Built during the Lombard Renaissance at the end of the fifteenth century, it is regarded as one of the major masterpieces of that artistic period. The church remains attached to the Diocese of Lodi, although its ownership has belonged to the municipality since construction began.
Origins and construction
The church grew from a Marian tradition associated with a fourteenth-century fresco showing the crowned Virgin Mary and the Christ Child. The image was painted on the outside wall of a tavern in the Lomellini district, now Via Incoronata, an area frequented by prostitutes. On 7 October 1487, many people in Lodi believed that the image had begun to shed tears and perform miracles. The event led to calls for a church dedicated to the Virgin.
Municipal authorities, leading families, and citizens supported the project. Bishop Carlo Pallavicino encouraged fundraising, while the city council promoted the construction and commissioned Giovanni Battagio, a Lodi architect and pupil of Bramante, a major Italian Renaissance architect. The foundation stone, bearing Lodi’s coat of arms, was laid on 29 May 1488.
Battagio directed the work for one year. Gian Giacomo Dolcebuono of Lugano then took over and continued the building, substantially following Battagio’s design, until 1493. The construction is also recorded as completed in 1494. The sacred image was transferred from the tavern wall to the church’s high altar, and the new building was solemnly consecrated in 1501.
Renaissance decoration and civic administration
Between 1497 and 1500, Ambrogio Bergognone decorated the high-altar chapel with frescoes and four panels. The chapel frescoes were destroyed during the seventeenth century, while the panels were later moved to the Chapel of Saint Paul. Giovanni Della Chiesa and his son Matteo decorated the minor chapels and upper galleries. From 1514 for about fifty years, the Piazza family of painters, active in Lombardy during the Renaissance and early modern period, continued the interior decoration with frescoes and painted panels. The church consequently developed into an extensive gallery of works by artists active in Lodi.
The building was erected at the city’s expense and has remained municipal property rather than diocesan property. This civic ownership gave rise to the name “Civic Temple,” while representations of Lodi’s heraldic shield connect the building visibly with the municipality. Financial administration first belonged to a college of noble officials, then passed to the Monte di Pietà, a charitable lending institution providing secured loans to people who could not obtain ordinary commercial credit. Its headquarters occupied the adjoining palace before responsibility eventually passed to the municipality.
Citizens continued to support the church over the centuries, and their portraits were assembled in the Benefactors’ Gallery, reached through the sacristy. The gallery preserves the memory of the civic and private contributions that sustained the temple as a municipal religious foundation.
Baroque and modern transformations
During the seventeenth century, the façade portico was enclosed by a Baroque wrought-iron gate, which remains in place. At the end of the same century, construction of the choir brought about the destruction of the Renaissance high altar. Andrea Lanzani and the Legnanino decorated the new high-altar chapel, while Carlo Lanzani carved the wooden choir.
The late-Baroque altar, to which the miraculous image was returned, was consecrated in 1738. In 1744, the new sacristy received a Rococo-style vault fresco and wooden furnishings by Antonio Rotta. During the mid-nineteenth century, the gilding and interior decoration of the upper galleries were renewed, Enrico Scuri repainted the dome, and the lantern was rebuilt. Afrodisio Truzzi completed the façade in 1879.
In 1988, during the five-hundredth anniversary of the temple’s construction, the Museum of the Incoronata’s Treasure opened to house objects connected with the church’s history. Because the building is not under ecclesiastical ownership, its liturgical activity is entrusted under canon law to a rector appointed by the Bishop of Lodi. The church is recognized as an Italian national monument.
Remains
The temple stands in a very narrow street near Piazza della Vittoria in Lodi. Its central plan is octagonal, and an eight-part dome rises above the interior, terminating in a lantern. Around the exterior octagonal drum runs a balustrade supported by small columns and topped with pinnacles. Giovanni Antonio Amadeo’s work on the raised external structure surrounding the central dome, known as the tiburio, dates from 1511 to 1513.
Exterior and interior structure
Bell tower and façade
The bell tower was designed by Lorenzo Maggi and built in 1503. The façade, completed by Afrodisio Truzzi in 1879, incorporates the portico enclosed by the seventeenth-century Baroque wrought-iron gate. Above the main entrance, a large niche contains Fulvio Piazza’s Stories of Abraham, dated 1562. The Epiphany above the main door is attributed to Callisto Piazza.
Dome and galleries
The interior is richly gilded. An upper gallery, or matroneum, runs around the interior and has small arches carried by blue-and-gold columns. The eight inner sections of the dome were frescoed by Enrico Scuri in 1840 with representations of the Triumphs of the Saints of Lodi. The lantern above the dome was rebuilt during the nineteenth-century renewal of the interior.
Chapels and painted works
High altar and Chapel of Saint Paul
The high-altar area contains the Marian image that gave rise to the church’s foundation, together with the late-Baroque altar consecrated in 1738. The Chapel of Saint Paul contains numerous works by Ambrogio Bergognone, including an Annunciation and a Visitation. It also received the four panels that Bergognone painted for the earlier high-altar chapel.
Panels and polyptych
Among the church’s paintings are four panels by Bergognone. His Annunciation includes a characteristic landscape of Lodi, while the Presentation at the Temple depicts the contemporary interior of the Incoronata. Martino and Albertino Piazza produced the Berinzaghi Polyptych, an artwork composed of several separately framed or hinged panels, and a Coronation of the Virgin painted on silk and placed behind the high altar. Works by Callisto Piazza and Stefano Maria Legnani are also preserved in the church.
Organ
In a niche to the right of the entrance, above a richly decorated choir loft with paintings and gilded carvings, stands the pipe organ. Its case derives from an instrument completed by Domenico da Lucca in 1507. Giovanni Battista Chiesa rebuilt or substantially reworked it in 1775, and Angelo Cavalli carried out a further new construction in 1895.
The organ retains original mechanical action, meaning that physical linkages transmit movement from the keys to the pipes without pneumatic or electrical systems. Its richly decorated case has painted doors showing Saint Bassianus on the right and the Madonna and Child on the left. The Tamburini firm of Crema restored the instrument in 1981. It has one manual, an Italian-style pedalboard, a fifty-note keyboard, seventeen stops, and short octaves on both the manual and pedalboard.
