The Chiesa della Croce in Senigallia, near piazza Roma, was built for the Confraternity of the Sacrament and the Cross and bears the date 1608. It was built by Girolamo Marini of Barchi, probably to a design by Muzio Oddi, architect to the court of Urbino. The late Renaissance exterior contrasts with the Baroque interior, entirely lined with gilded wood.
What to see
The façade is divided by four pilasters with composite capitals; the pediment, strongly projecting and with an oculus, is adorned like the capitals and cornice with Istrian stone decoration, and on the cornice you can read the name of the confraternity and the date of consecration. Over the door is a warning from Saint Augustine: if you exalt yourself God flees from you, if you humble yourself he comes to you. The interior is rectangular, with walls of carved gilded wood and a coffered ceiling with arabesques and, in the centre, the symbols of the cross and the Eucharist.
There are seven altars, each originally belonging to a guild. On the high altar, within a lavish setting, is the Entombment of Christ by Federico Barocci, who also designed the frame: the canvas shows knowledge of Raphael's Baglioni altarpiece and opens in the centre onto a view of the Ducal Palace of Urbino. At the sides are four works by Giovanni Anastasi of Senigallia, with the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi and the Annunciation; beneath the altar is a seventeenth-century wooden Dead Christ.
Visiting
Eucharistic adoration is held in the church every day; on the choir loft over the entrance is an organ by the Venetian Callido workshop, with a single keyboard of 45 keys. Times should be checked.
Our editors' tip
Look at the first altar on the left, dedicated to Saint Barbara, patron of bombardiers and gunners: the columns are shaped like cannon barrels and the friezes show cannonballs, set squares and sabres. The saint's altarpiece is by Claudio Ridolfi, a pupil of Barocci.
