Saint Dominic Monastery in Taggia: A Gothic Dominican Convent and Art Gallery
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Genoese
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Monastery
On this page12 sections
History
Foundation and Construction
Saint Dominic Monastery in Taggia, Italy, is a Roman Catholic Dominican convent in the Diocese of Ventimiglia-San Remo. Founded in 1459 through the initiative of the Dominican friar Cristoforo da Milano, the complex was built in Gothic style between 1460 and 1490. The Comacine masters Gasperino da Lancia and Filippo da Carlono directed its construction. Cristoforo da Milano’s tomb remains preserved in the church.
The Order of Preachers, commonly known as the Dominican Order, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and associated particularly with preaching, theological study, and communal convent life. The Taggia convent became an important religious and artistic center, with a church and associated buildings that accumulated works from the Renaissance through the late Baroque.
Artistic Development and Damage
The complex is regarded as one of the largest picture galleries of the Ligurian and Niçoise schools of painting. Its collection includes works by Ludovico Brea, Giovanni Canavesio, Emanuele Macario da Pigna, Gregorio De Ferrari, and Giovan Battista Trotti, together with sculpture by Giacomo Antonio Ponsonelli. Ludovico Brea was a leading painter of the Ligurian and western Alpine region, while Giovanni Canavesio worked in the Ligurian and Niçoise area.
The convent also preserves evidence of periods of violence and political change. During an incursion by Barbary pirates in 1564, the face and breast of Saint Catherine were defaced in the church’s Crucifixion and Saints. The marks of the blows remain visible. The coats of arms of the families who commissioned Giovanni Canavesio’s polyptych of Saint Dominic and the Four Doctors of the Church were later abraded during the Ligurian Republic, the French-supported republic that existed in the region from 1797 to 1805.
Remains
Convent Complex
Cloister
The Gothic complex includes the convent, cloister, church, sacristy, chapter house, weekday chapel, library, and refectory. Built during the 1470s, the cloister has a square perimeter and a late-Gothic loggia with five arcades on each side. Cross-vaults cover the passage around the open courtyard, organizing the circulation space for conventual activities. Its lunettes, the semicircular wall surfaces above the arcades, contain the Stories of Saint Dominic, painted in 1613.
The cloister gives access to the church and sacristy. The chapter house follows the sacristy, while the weekday chapel follows the chapter house and is now used as a museum. The library occupied the upper floor of the western wing, and the northern wing provides access to the refectory.
Refectory
The refectory preserves Giovanni Canavesio’s Crucifixion with Mary, John, and Saint Dominic, painted around 1482. Saint Dominic is shown with the features of Blessed Cristoforo da Milano, the Dominican friar venerated as Blessed in Catholic tradition.
Church of Saint Mary of Mercy
The church is dedicated to Saint Mary of Mercy and contains twelve altars. Its principal paintings and sculptures form a sequence that spans the late fifteenth century, the Renaissance, and the Baroque period.
Main Altar
The main altar holds Ludovico Brea’s Polyptych of the Madonna of Mercy, made between 1483 and 1488 in collaboration with his brother Antonio. A polyptych is a multi-panel altarpiece, often arranged in horizontal registers. In the central panel, the Virgin extends her mantle over kneeling worshippers, including a pope and an emperor. Saints Dominic, John the Evangelist, James, and Peter Martyr occupy the lower register. The upper register shows Thomas Aquinas, possibly Saint Anne, Catherine of Siena, and Vincent Ferrer, with the latter figures attributed to Antonio Brea.
Side Chapels and Altars
In a side chapel, Brea’s Polyptych of Saint Catherine of Siena between Saint Agatha and Saint Lucy was commissioned in 1488 by Dominican tertiary sisters. It has a gold ground, a painted gold background characteristic of much medieval and early Renaissance religious art, and is completed by the Annunciation and two archangels.
Beside the main altar stands the Polyptych of the Baptism of Christ, dated 1495. Brea’s final work for the convent is the Madonna of the Rosary, dated 1513. It depicts the enthroned Virgin and Child flanked by Saint Dominic and Saint Catherine, with a broad landscape replacing the traditional gold ground.
Canavesio Polyptych
Giovanni Canavesio’s late-fifteenth-century Saint Dominic and the Four Doctors of the Church represents a transition between Gothic and Renaissance art. Saint Dominic is traditionally shown with the features of Blessed Cristoforo da Milano. The other principal figures are Saints Ambrose, Gregory, Jerome, and Augustine, while the upper register contains Saint Louis IX, king of France.
Other Paintings and Sculpture
The chapel containing Blessed Cristoforo da Milano’s tomb preserves a wooden Crucifix from the first half of the fifteenth century. Emanuele Macario da Pigna’s Crucifixion and Saints was painted between 1530 and 1532. The church also contains an Adoration of the Magi attributed to Parmigianino, the usual name of the Mannerist painter Francesco Mazzola.
Other works include Gregorio De Ferrari’s Saints Rose of Lima, Vincent Ferrer, and Louis Bertrand and Giovan Battista Trotti’s Nativity of Jesus with Saint Peter Martyr, dated 1599. Giacomo Antonio Ponsonelli’s Madonna of the Rosary, carved in Carrara marble and probably made from a model by Filippo Parodi, is dated before 1709.
