The church of San Bernardino da Siena is the patron church of Carpi, at via Trento Trieste 20, and dates from the seventeenth century. It was built by the Confraternity of San Bernardino.
What to see
The building site opened in 1604; when the work was finished the interiors were enriched with finely made furnishings and numerous works of art, many later moved to the rooms of the Galleria Estense or elsewhere, leaving copies in their place. The brick front is gabled, divided into three parts, with the architraved portal and, high up, a round window; the bell tower rises beside the presbytery on the south side, with the belfry opened by large single-light windows. The nave is single and keeps fine wooden furnishings and altar frontals in scagliola and stucco; the high altar is of the eighteenth century.
The painting Saint Bernardino of Siena Saves Carpi from an Enemy Army deserves a mention, a seventeenth-century work by Ludovico Carracci commissioned by the confraternity: it was taken to the church of San Bernardino, then to that of San Bartolomeo and finally wanted by Alfonso IV d'Este, Duke of Modena and Reggio, for his gallery, who had a copy made to leave at Carpi. The original stayed in Modena for about a century and a half; then, with the arrival of Napoleon Bonaparte's army, it was taken to France and became part of the property of the cathedral of Notre-Dame, at risk of destruction in the fire of 15 April 2019. In the first chapel on the right is the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence attributed to Jacopo Palma il Giovane, in the second a Saint Charles Borromeo.
Visiting
The church is at via Trento Trieste 20, near the historic centre of Carpi. It was damaged by the Emilia earthquake of 2012 and reopened for worship two years later. The sources consulted give no opening hours: check them.
Our editors' tip
During a cholera epidemic, in 1857, the Milanese goldsmith Giovanni Bellezza offered the reliquary bust of Saint Bernardino of Siena, which stands on the high altar.
