On 15 August 1650 the people of Lavagna laid the foundation stone of the new collegiate church; on 1 November of the same year the bell tower of the old church, by then disused, collapsed on its own. The work was paid for with a tax on grain sales levied by the town council, and a good number of residents worked on the site as volunteers. The building stands on the ruins of the Fieschi castle and of a signal tower that marked the harbour entrance for sailors. The walls were closed in 1668, the solemn consecration came only on 18 October 1703, and in 1921 Pope Benedict XV granted it the title of minor basilica.
What to see
Who designed it is unclear. Local sources name Giovanni Battista Ghiso, an architect of the Republic of Genoa, said to have followed or at least known a design by Gian Lorenzo Bernini; the art historian Federico Alizeri credits Francesco da Novi instead. The interior has three naves, with partly paired columns carrying round arches: a barrel vault with heavy ribs runs over the central nave, while small domes rise over the side bays. The two bell towers flanking the marble front were finished in 1657, eleven years before the rest.
The ten side altars record who paid for them: the first on the right is the fishermen's altar, dedicated to Peter and Andrew; the second on the left is the farmers' altar, with Sebastiano Galeotti's Madonna della Guardia with Saint Martin. The finest is the altar of Saint Nicholas of Bari, which holds Domenico Piola's Risen Christ with Saint Nicholas and Saint Stephen. At the high altar, carved by the Bocciardi brothers, the marble statue of the patron saint is by Pasquale Bocciardo, flanked by Carlo Fontana's Martyrdom and Finding of the Body of Saint Stephen. Gian Battista Pianello, from Chiavari, painted the dome of the Rosary chapel in 1881.
Visiting
The entrance is on Piazza Guglielmo Marconi, in the middle of Lavagna. This is the parish church of the Chiavari-Lavagna vicariate, so it opens and closes around service times: in the morning and in the late afternoon you will almost always find the doors unlocked. Not everything, though, is visible from the nave. The arches and pillars of the old choir, all that survives of the earlier church, ended up inside the presbytery and can only be seen on request. For the side-altar canvases what matters is light, and the good light here is the light of the middle hours of the day.
Our editors' tip
We suggest standing at the back of the central nave and looking at the small domes of the side bays one by one, rather than heading straight for the high altar: the Baptism of Jesus above the font, the apparition on Monte Figogna over the farmers' altar, Pius V announcing the victory of Lepanto beside the Rosary chapel and, next to it, the Lavagna procession painted as it was actually held. Before leaving, one date is worth keeping in mind: 1060, when this church became a collegiate church, the first outside Genoa. The earliest document naming it is older still, an arbitration ruling by Count Oberto of Lavagna dated 994.