The church of Sant'Agostino is a Catholic place of worship in Cesena, on via Scevola Riceputi, in the historic centre.
What to see
Its present appearance dates from 1748: the façade, to a design by Luigi Vanvitelli, was left unfinished, without the planned marble cladding. The interior, on a basilican plan, has a single nave with three chapels on each side, which keep works of considerable interest, among them the Immaculate Conception with Saints James and Erasmus by Cristoforo Serra, of 1670, and the Massacre of the Innocents by Giovan Battista Razzani; the sources also mention a Crucifixion of the early fourteenth century with polychrome wooden statues of the Virgin and Saint John. The high-altar altarpiece, the Disputation on the Immaculate Conception by Girolamo Genga, commissioned in 1513 and finished in 1518, was taken away during the Napoleonic occupation and is now in the Pinacoteca di Brera.
The complex was a convent of the Observant friars; in the fifteenth century, at the wish of Violante, wife of Malatesta Novello, it passed to the Augustinian friars, who began a vast programme of restructuring and decoration of church and convent. The church was completed around 1520; in the eighteenth century the Augustinians replaced it with the present building, to a design by Vanvitelli. The bell tower, among the tallest in the city, was designed according to the sources by Pietro Carlo Borboni and holds a set of five bells cast by Cesare Brighenti in 1949, but the many antennas and relays that hindered their swing have made it necessary to block the movement of the third bell; the main portal is by Sebastiano Bernava.
Visiting
The church is on via Scevola Riceputi, in the historic centre of Cesena. The sources consulted give no opening hours; these should be checked.
Our editors' tip
Another work by Genga is tied to the church: in the upper part of the apse there is now a copy of an Annunciation of around 1500, whose original is kept in the museum of Cesena Cathedral.
