Chiesa dei Ss. Ippolito e Lorenzo

The parish church of Saints Ippolito and Lorenzo in Faenza brings together an early medieval crypt and a late-Baroque church rebuilt in 1771–74. Its layered architecture preserves traces of the Benedictine community that occupied the site before the year 1000.

Why it matters

The church links Faenza's monastic history with its eighteenth-century artistic culture. Beneath the later building, the crypt preserves rooms assembled in different periods with columns and carved elements reused from Roman structures. Above, stucco decoration by Antonio Trentanove gives the church a distinctive late-Baroque character.

What to notice

The crypt has three parts built in different phases; one room is dated to the seventh or eighth century and another to the twelfth or thirteenth. Reused Roman columns, bases and capitals support the spaces, while a limestone slab with a Roman inscription recalls the area's ancient history. In the upper church, Trentanove's stucco decoration animates the single nave and side chapels. The interior also preserves a Veneto-Cretan icon of the Madonna and Child and a painting of Saint Benedict by Pietro Lenzini, dated 1993.

Context and history

A Benedictine monastery occupied the site before the ninth century; it later passed to the Camaldolese. The medieval church and convent were replaced when the present church was built between 1771 and 1774. Giuseppe Pistocchi has been proposed as its designer, though the attribution remains uncertain; Gioacchino Tomba was the master builder. The crypt was preserved beneath the new church and rediscovered and cleaned in 1894 by engineer Antonio Zannoni. The church remains a parish of the Diocese of Faenza-Modigliana.