The church of the Servi is a church in Faenza, a few steps from the cathedral, at the crossing of via Manfredi and corso Saffi. It has been closed since the years after the Second World War and a restoration to make it usable again has long been planned.
What to see
The present church is a testimony of eighteenth-century architecture: it was completely rebuilt between 1726 and 1735 on an existing place of worship, of 1343, run and lived in by the Servite Fathers. The architect of the rebuilding was Giuseppe Soratini, who designed an imposing façade, almost entirely of brick, divided into two orders and marked by two pairs of pilasters resting on plinths of Samoggia stone. In the adjoining Servite convent lived the blessed Giacomo Filippo Bertoni, whose body remained on display for veneration in the Manfredi chapel, inside the church, until 1944, when it was moved to the cathedral.
The original church had a façade with a portico of six arches and a bell tower raised between 1758 and 1774 by Pietro Borboni, the tallest in Faenza, which the Germans blew up during the Second World War, like that of the church of Sant'Agostino, and which was never rebuilt. Remains of the southern flank of the fourteenth-century building can be seen from the first cloister of the adjoining Biblioteca Comunale, built where the convent of the Servite Fathers stood.
Visiting
The church is at the crossing of via Manfredi and corso Saffi, in Faenza. Being closed, the sources consulted give no opening hours or visiting arrangements: check them.
Our editors' tip
To see the remains of the fourteenth-century flank one has to look from the first cloister of the Biblioteca Comunale, which occupies the place of the Servite convent.
