Chiesa di San Carlino

San Carlino is a small church in Ravenna with medieval origins and an eighteenth-century Baroque interior. Its decoration and reused cathedral furnishings connect local patronage with the changing religious architecture of the city.

Why it matters

The church's history reaches back to the eleventh century. Later rebuilding gave it a much smaller-scale expression of the artistic renewal found in Ravenna's larger churches, while a furnishing from the ancient cathedral links it with a lost architectural setting.

What to notice

Domenico Barbiani's dome paintings and Giuliano Garavini's stuccoes enrich the compact interior. A Greek-marble ciborium with a late-fifteenth-century tabernacle came from the Basilica Ursiana. A painting of Saint Charles Borromeo with other titular saints is attributed to Giovanni Barbiani's workshop.

Context and history

An earlier dedication associated the church with Saints Simon, Jude, Fabian and Sebastian. Noble patronage by the Tombesi dall'Ova family supported the renewal of 1756–1769 by Taddeo and Giovan Battista Dal Corno. The resulting Baroque character belongs to that later campaign rather than to the building's medieval beginnings.