The cathedral of San Pancrazio is the main church of Albano Laziale and the mother church of the suburbicarian see of Albano; it has been a minor basilica since 1865. A cathedral at Albano is recorded by the Liber pontificalis as early as the time of the emperor Constantine and Pope Sylvester I, with a long list of donated lands, among them Lake Albano. Pope Leo III had it rebuilt between the eighth and ninth centuries, because it was falling down with age and had been struck by fire. In the sixteenth century it had no clergy and no income: the cardinal bishop Michele Bonelli had it restored and joined to it the parishes of San Pietro and Sant'Ambrogio, a measure ratified by Clement VIII in 1593.
What to see
Today's appearance dates from the early eighteenth century: Cardinal Ferdinando d'Adda began the rebuilding, died in 1719 and by his will bound his successor to finish it; Fabrizio Paolucci completed it, calling in the architect Carlo Buratti. The façade is of peperino stone, divided in three by pilasters of the giant order, with a central pediment bearing Cardinal Paolucci's coat of arms; in the middle is a blind window imitating the benediction loggia of the Roman basilicas, topped by the palm of martyrdom of Saint Pancras.
The interior has a nave and two aisles with barrel vaults and six side chapels, with paintings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: among them an altarpiece by Anastasio Fontebuoni, the Annunciation with Saints Blaise and Jerome, documented in 1611. Late Baroque in origin, it was much altered in a Neoclassical direction between the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; the restorations exposed some columns of Leo III's cathedral. In the crypt beneath the presbytery are Ionic capitals of the old basilica, and the church keeps an Early Christian marble sarcophagus with a praying figure.
Visiting
Opening and Mass times should be checked with the cathedral parish or the diocese of Albano.
Our editors' tip
Near the font is a plaque that once stood on the façade: it is a copy of the document by which, in 1118, Pope Paschal II thanked the people of Albano by exempting them from certain taxes. And a curiosity: in 1687 Cardinal Flavio Chigi, to stop the burial of the dead under the floor, had a cemetery made where the right aisle now stands; it stayed there until the early nineteenth century, when it was moved to Santa Maria della Stella.
