In this village church there is a painting attributed to Rubens and an Adoration of the Magi by Luca Cambiaso, one of the great Genoese painters of the sixteenth century. The difference is that Cambiaso was born here, at Moneglia, a few streets away: the first is an attribution that makes headlines, the second is a village that kept its own painter.
What to see
The building is said to date from 1396, on the initiative of the first provost Melchiorre Moltedo, commissioned by the archbishop of Genoa; the parish was instituted a few years later, detached from that of Santa Croce. In 1494 the church passed to the Franciscans, with the clause that the parish rights and duties remained with the rector.
Besides the Cambiaso and the canvas of saint George and the dragon attributed to Rubens, on the vault of the presbytery, there are a wooden group with the same saint and the same dragon by the Genoese sculptor Pietro Galleano and two fifteenth-century polyptychs, one attributed to Giovanni da Pisa and one by Giovanni da Barbagelata. There is also a Madonna with the souls in purgatory by an unknown painter of the seventeenth century.
Visiting
The church is in via Fratelli Botto, in the centre of Moneglia, on the coast between Sestri Levante and the Cinque Terre; it is a parish church, so it opens for services and during visiting hours. Half an hour.
Our editors' tip
Find the two works and compare them: the canvas attributed to a famous Fleming and the Adoration by the local boy. Great attributions come and go with scholarship, and this one could change tomorrow. That Cambiaso was born in this village, on the other hand, nobody can change, and it is the best reason to be here.