Church of Holy Mary of Grace, Soncino, Cremona, Lombardy, Italy, Europe

Описание: In 1468 the Carmelites were granted the officiating of a small church outside Porta San Giuseppe, in Soncino. In February 1501 Cardinal Raimondo Perauti, bishop of Gurk in Carinthia, laid the first stone of the new church, strongly desired by his father Pietro da Mortara. Father Antonio Maestri, already from the Carmelite convent of Mantua, was the supervisor of the works. Between 1515 and 1526 the bell tower was erected, based on a design by maestro Gerardo da Piacenza. The church was consecrated on 8 September 1528 by Monsignor Luca da Seriate, in the presence of Francesco II Sforza who had incurred the expenses for the impressive cycle of frescoes. Santa Maria delle Grazie became a pantheon church for the noble and powerful local Press family. In 1536 Charles V, in this church, invested Massimiliano Stampa with the marquisate of Soncino. The convent complex was suppressed in 1772. On the façade, of terracotta, divided into three by pilasters, there is a portal of the Bramante type, built in white marble from Rezzato (Botticino marble) and surmounted by a rose window. The building, with a rectangular plan and a single nave, has a barrel vault divided into five bays. On the sides of the nave there are shallow chapels - five on the right and five on the left. The vast cycle of frescoes that covers the interior is the work of G. Francesco Scanzi, Giulio Campi and Francesco and Bernardino Carminati. The first, the fourth and the fifth chapel on the left and the chapels on the right are frescoed by Francesco Scanzi with various subjects, including Madonna with Child, Fugue in Egypt, Annunciation, Apparition of Jesus to the Magdalene and saints. In the sails of the presbytery are depicted the four Evangelists, attributed to the painter of Cremona Giulio Campi who is also considered the author of the Assumption of Mary, painted on the arch which divides the presbytery from the apse and which originally separated the front church, which was intended for to the clergy, from the rear, reserved for the faithful. The Last Judgment, painted on the counter-façade, is the work of Francesco and Bernardino Carminati.