In 1499 a merchant from this village, Andrea della Costa, ordered a triptych in Bruges, in Flanders, for the church of his own hamlet. The painting arrived and is still there, in the third chapel of the left aisle: the Martyrdom of Saint Andrew at the centre, the Wedding at Cana and the Raising of Lazarus on the side panels. Some studies place it close to the technique of Hans Memling. The building is the parish church of San Lorenzo della Costa, a hillside hamlet of Santa Margherita Ligure, in the diocese of Chiavari.
What to see
The Flemish triptych is the reason to come up here, but it is not alone: in the presbytery, at the far end of the apse, hangs the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence by Luca Cambiaso, and a Holy Family by the same painter is kept in the sacristy. Among the eighteenth-century wooden statues, the Madonna of the Rosary by Anton Maria Maragliano, the great Genoese carver, stands out.
The church has three aisles, eight side chapels, gilded Baroque stucco work and polychrome marbles. Little survives of the original Romanesque structure: a few columns in front of the marble façade, which dates from 1902, and other finds inside. They are worth a look before you go in, because they are the oldest part of the whole.
Visiting
San Lorenzo della Costa lies on the hillside behind Santa Margherita Ligure, and the church faces piazza Monsignor Luigi Mazzini, the village square. It is a few minutes up from the seafront by car or local bus, but walking up remains the best way to understand how this stretch of coast is put together. It is a working parish, in the vicariate of Rapallo-Santa Margherita Ligure: opening depends on services, and the current details are on the website of the diocese of Chiavari. The triptych chapel is off to the side and daylight is rarely enough.
Our editors' tip
We look at the wings first and the central panel afterwards. The Wedding at Cana and the Raising of Lazarus say more about the Flemish hand than the martyrdom does, and they also measure the distance to the Cambiaso a few steps away at the end of the church: two centuries and two opposite ways of painting a sacred scene, facing each other. Allow half an hour at least, and then stop on the parvis, which looks out towards the Tigullio.