The Christ Child venerated here on the solemnity of the Holy Name did not arrive with the church: the statue belonged to Francesca Teresa Rossi, the woman — today a Servant of God — on whose initiative the building went up. Work began on 19 August 1923 in the hamlet of Geo, above Ceranesi; five years later, on 28 March 1928, the finished church was raised to an autonomous vicariate, and on 14 November 1936 it was given the title of parish. What you see today, however, is largely the result of the enlargement carried out in the 1960s: on 4 August 1963 the archbishop of Genoa, Giuseppe Siri, blessed and inaugurated the new church, and the bell tower followed on 24 September 1967. After restoration work on church and presbytery in 1979, the official consecration came only on 26 June 1982, again at the hands of Siri, by then a cardinal.
What to see
The church sits on a high podium and opens with a portico of three round arches on piers, a filter between the road and the door. The facade is gabled and entirely plastered: the portal in the centre carries a double-pitched canopy and, above it, a Serlian three-light window. To the right rises the bell tower of 1967, closed by a pyramidal spire.
Inside there is a single nave with a wooden ceiling. Besides the statue of the Child that belonged to Rossi, shown for veneration during the solemnity of the Holy Name, the church keeps a painting of the same subject: the painter Antonio Maugeri gave it to the parish and it was blessed on 19 January 1986. On the inner facade, above the portal, stands the pipe organ built in 2004 by the Fratelli Marin firm: a wooden case in three fields, a display of principal pipes with mitred mouths, a movable console with two 58-note keyboards and a 30-note concave-radial pedalboard.
Visiting
Geo is one of the hamlets of Ceranesi, in the Polcevera valley behind Genoa; the church gives its name to the road that serves it, via Santissimo Nome di Gesù. The parish belongs to the Bolzaneto vicariate of the archdiocese of Genoa and keeps no museum hours: the building opens for services, and outside them it is worth getting in touch with the parish priest. Do not expect a medieval monument: this is a twentieth-century parish church and should be looked at as such.
Our editors' tip
We would come for the solemnity of the Holy Name, the one moment when Rossi's statue is put on show: it is the object that explains why this church exists at all. Anyone here on an ordinary day should look up at the inner facade, where the organ of 2004 shows its principal pipes with mitred mouths, a detail you can pick out from the nave with the naked eye. And before going in, stop under the portico: from up there on the podium you can gauge the jump between the road and the building.