In 1244 Pope Innocent IV, born Sinibaldo Fieschi, decided to raise a church in his family's village while he was in Genoa, on his way to the Council of Lyon. In 1245, while the pope was presiding over that assembly, Frederick II of Swabia laid waste to the Fieschi county; the pope answered by excommunicating the emperor. Work resumed only in 1252, and the basilica was consecrated by another Fieschi who had reached the papal throne, Adrian V, elected in 1276.
What to see
The gabled front is faced in slate and alternating bands of white marble, the two-tone solution that marks important buildings in Liguria, civic and religious alike. Pilaster strips and small hanging arches divide the facade; at its centre a rose window sits under an arcade of marble arches. The lintel of the Gothic doorway carries the foundation inscription, and in the lunette a fifteenth-century fresco of the Crucifixion survives. Above, the central spire is flanked by four pinnacles.
Inside, three aisles are separated by stone columns with deeply carved capitals: this counts as one of the best preserved Romanesque buildings in the region. A crystal case holds fragments of the True Cross, given by Adrian V. The bell tower carries six bells tuned to a diatonic scale, cast by the Picasso foundry of Recco in 1905. Outside, the forecourt is paved with a risseu, the Ligurian mosaic of white, black and red pebbles: here the pattern repeats the front of the church standing before it.
Visiting
The basilica stands on Piazza Innocenzo IV, in the hamlet of San Salvatore above Lavagna, in the commune of Cogorno: the square was laid out together with the church, and facing it stretches the counts' palace of the Fieschi, which since 2005 has housed the Centro culturale Museo dei Fieschi, opened for the 750th anniversary of Innocent IV's death. The village was already a stage for pilgrims heading to Rome along the Via Francigena, and the complex has been a national monument since 1860; the basilica is still a working parish, so service times are worth avoiding. In 2023 it came sixth in the FAI's Luoghi del Cuore poll with 22,890 votes.
Our editors' tip
Come in summer, when the forecourt becomes the stage for the Addio do fantin, the costumed medieval festival that acts out a farewell to bachelorhood: it is the one occasion when the square works as the Fieschi imagined it. On any ordinary day, stop to read the risseu before you go in, then look up at the facade: it is the same design.