The church of Sant'Agostino, anciently of Santa Lucia, is in the historic centre of Fano, at the end of via Vitruvio: rebuilt in the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was almost completely demolished by the bombing of the Second World War, which spared only the east flank.
What to see
According to the sources it stands on the remains of a Roman building whose identification is still difficult, thought possibly to be the Temple of Fortune; historically one can say only that in 1265 the church existed: that year the building, until then dedicated to Santa Lucia, and the adjoining convent were handed over to the Augustinians of the convent of Santo Stefano in Padule. In the early fifteenth century it was rebuilt and reconsecrated in 1409. In the second half of the sixteenth century Ludovico Giorgi planned to invert the church, with the apse in place of the façade and vice versa; the transformation was completed a century later, with the great barrel vault of 1685, with at the centre a fresco by Giambattista Manzi, Saint Augustine in Glory, in a false architectural perspective. The convent remained Augustinian until the Napoleonic suppressions, then was the seat of the diocesan seminary until after the war. Today the church is being rebuilt, on its original lines, and the convent will become the seat of the Museo diocesano.
Of the church there remains the east flank, with the lines of the fifteenth-century restoration: long blocked trilobed single-light windows and a rich terracotta cornice with a double band of small arches. In one of the side chapels of the apse of the old Gothic building survive badly worn fourteenth-century frescoes with figures of saints, surmounted by episodes from the life of Saint Lucy by an unknown fifteenth-century artist. Of the convent there remains the Renaissance cloister with slender Tuscan columns, of about 1560, with lunettes frescoed by Giulio Cesare Begni, around 1640, with episodes from the life of Saint Augustine; on the south side two mullioned windows light the old chapter house, with its pointed wooden ceiling of the fifteenth century.
Visiting
The church is at the end of via Vitruvio, in Fano. Because of the restoration it is usually closed to the public, but the Archeoclub of Fano often organises special openings, usually for the feast of Saint Augustine, at the end of August. Hours and openings should be checked.
Our editors' tip
Opposite the church a masonry aedicule gives access to the stair that goes down to the Roman remains on which church and convent stand: a long wall of small stone blocks with pillars and windows, small fan-shaped arches, a wall with an apse, columns and drainage channels. For this church Guercino painted in 1641 the Guardian Angel, now in the Pinacoteca civica.
