Le Cinque Terre.org



THE CHURCH OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST

The church of San Giovanni Battista was built between 1244 and 1307, the date inscribed on a rock in the second column on the left looking towards the altar. Remodeled in the Baroque period and more recently between 1963 and 1964, it is a splendid example of Genoese Ligurian Gothic.
The façade is made of alternating vestments of white marble and dark green serpentine, with a slightly splayed pointed portal, flanked by a double pair of marble columns and surmounted by a lunette with an 18th century fresco depicting the Baptism of Christ. The splendid central rose window in white marble is a splendid example of ornate Gothic, attributed to Matteo and Pietro da Campiglio. From the central button, eighteen smooth and twisted columns radiate alternating from which intertwined trefoil arches branch off.
With a basilica plan with three naves, it has a progressive narrowing of the width of the aisles towards the entrance, with the dual effect of creating a perspective illusion and favoring the propagation of sound waves. Inside are preserved the baptismal font from 1360, a canvas of the Madonna del Rosario from the school of Luca Cambiaso, a painting depicting the Crucifixion by an unknown artist, probably a Genoese painter from the 17th century and the high altar from 1734. One of the columns bears an inscription engraved in medieval characters.
The bell tower with Ghibelline battlements rises alongside the apse area, an ancient medieval control tower with a rectangular plan, opened by Gothic mullioned windows with arches decorated with denticles, raised in the 15th century and remodeled in the 18th century after an earthquake.

The church of Saint John the Baptist