San Facio, also called the church of the Foppone, is a late Baroque church in Cremona, now deconsecrated. It was completed in 1781 to serve the burials in the surrounding ossuary of those who died in the adjacent hospital, the Ospedale Maggiore and Ospedale Vecchio.
What to see
The name Foppone comes from its similarity of function to the Nuovi Sepolcri, of 1695, in Milan. The large cemetery crypts in the surrounding portico formed part of the eighteenth-century drive to provide, systematise and formalise the burial of the poor. From the courtyard the architecture looks severe, except for the domes of the church.
The interior, on a Greek-cross plan, is decorated by Giovanni Manfredini with grotesques, an ornament used in cemetery churches because of its presence in the Roman catacombs. The main altarpiece is a Deposition from the Cross with the Mother, the Magdalene and Joseph of Arimathea, of 1569, by Vincenzo Campi; at the left altar a Virgin and Child with Saint Facius, who with a basket of bread distributes food to the poor and maimed, of 1593, by Andrea Mainardi called il Chiaveghino.
Visiting
The church is in Cremona, in the middle of the cemetery area that surrounds it. The site was closed to burials in the nineteen seventies and administration passed to the Comune. The sources consulted give no hours or visiting arrangements: check with the Comune of Cremona.
Our editors' tip
A guide of 1820 cites, at the first altar on the right of the entrance, a Caravaggesque canvas of Christ healing the blind man, by Pietro Martire Neri: look for it, it is the piece nearest the entrance.
