Noli was an autonomous diocese from 1239 to 1820, and its territory stopped at Spotorno, Vezzi Portio and Bergeggi: three municipalities, little more. The church of Nostra Signora delle Grazie is the chapel of that very small bishopric, built into the episcopal palace so completely that from the street you can hardly tell it is a church.
What to see
Its origins may go back to the year 1000, but the first precise picture of it dates from 1585, when Monsignor Nicolò Mascardi described a single-nave chapel with a wooden beam ceiling, a lime floor and a bell tower facing east. An inscription on the inner wall of the facade records that the present church was carved out of an older building.
What you see now is instead the work of the Noli bishop Antonio Maria Arduini, who had the interior rebuilt between 1769 and 1775: Genoese Baroque, with the stucco and framing typical of Riviera workshops in those years. It is a small church, and it is worth seeing as the record of a local church power that held together a palace, a court and a harbour on this spot.
Visiting
It stands in the old town, inside the Vescovado complex, a few minutes on foot from the main streets. It keeps no monument hours and opening depends on the parish, so you may well find it shut; in that case there is still the little square in front, which looks out over the bay of Noli and a good stretch of the gulf.
Our editors' tip
Come in the late afternoon, when the light falls on the bay opposite: the pause on that small square is worth as much as the interior. And read this church alongside the other two in Noli, San Paragorio outside the walls and San Pietro on piazza della Cattedrale. Lined up, they show how a diocese of three villages still managed to build, move and rebuild for six centuries.