The first document to mention this church dates from 1251, and the reason is thoroughly practical: the purchase of a bell. Tradition puts its origin in the fifth or sixth century, and until 1567 it was the only parish in Stella. The building standing today holds at least two periods together: sixteenth-century fabric under an eighteenth-century overhaul so decisive that it settled the present appearance. It sits on the hill where the roads from Albisola Superiore, Celle Ligure, Varazze and Giovo Ligure meet.
What to see
Inside, the plan is a Latin cross with three aisles, a barrel vault and an octagonal dome frescoed from edge to edge, painted in tempera by Domenico Buscaglia towards the end of the nineteenth century. Six pillars, three to a side, mark out the aisles, faced in marble and capped with gilded capitals.
The works reward a slow circuit. Lazzaro De Maestri left frescoes and canvases here, among them a medallion with the Crowning of the Madonna; Paolo Gerolamo Brusco painted the Saint Martin of 1810; Agostino Ratti signed the Coronation of the Virgin on the inner façade, from the late eighteenth century. There are statues by Anton Maria Maragliano and a Saint Martin by Antonio Brilla. The marble font carries the date 1728, the pulpit is nineteenth-century and the late eighteenth-century wooden choir frames the high altar.
Visiting
The church is the parish church of the San Martino hamlet and faces piazza Stefano Serventi; it belongs to the Albisola-Varazze vicariate, in the diocese of Savona-Noli, and opening hours follow the services. Worth adding to the round are the three chapels that depend on the parish and lie scattered in the countryside around: the Immaculate Conception at Verne, San Pietro at Teglia and Sant'Anna.
Our editors' tip
Before going in we stop outside to look at the bell tower: painted in strong colours and closed by a dome roofed with ceramic tiles, a detail that speaks of Albisola, the town at the foot of one of the roads climbing up here. Then, inside, we look for the spot exactly under the centre of the dome: from there the frescoes read as one piece, and that is the position that does justice to Buscaglia's work.