Basilica di San Giovanni Battista

Begun in 1619 and finished only in 1674, with its facade and dome following in 1762 and 1780, the basilica of San Giovanni Battista dominates the seafront quarter of Finalmarina. Inside stand paired Carrara marble columns, a sculpted high altar of 1701 and side altars funded by boat owners, confraternities and noble families of the shore.

Why it matters

In 1567 the bishop of Savona, Ambrogio Fieschi, ordered the community of Finalmarina to build a new parish church: the old Pieve del Finale, the medieval church inherited from the earlier inland settlement, was falling down and stood aside from the town that had grown along the shore. The answer took generations. Work on the great baroque basilica began in 1619 and ended in 1674 after fifty-five years of construction, the facade was completed in 1762 to designs by the Finale architect Nicolò Barella, and the dome rose in 1780. The Museo Diffuso del Finale describes it as one of the important seventeenth-century churches of western Liguria. Its long construction history reflects the efforts of the local community, particularly the boat owners who helped finance it.

What to notice

The facade has a stuccoed surface, flanked by two small bell towers and crowned by the statues of John the Baptist, Peter and Paul. Inside, the basilica has three aisles, the aisles divided by slender paired columns of white Carrara marble on the model of San Siro in Genoa. The high altar, carved in 1701 by Finale sculptor Pietro Ripa, has a tabernacle of twisted columns beneath a flight of angels supporting the cross. In the left transept, the Immaculate Conception chapel contains a richly dressed statue of the Madonna, patroness of the city, dated 1681 and dressed in the Spanish style. The San Pietro chapel, once the seat of a confraternity founded in 1648 to ransom Christian captives, holds Antonio Brilla's sculptural group of Christ appearing to Peter, made in 1860 and long venerated by Finale's fishermen.

Context and history

While the new church rose, the parish worshipped in the oratory of Sant'Antonio alla Marina, and the cost was carried by the Marina community itself, above all the boat owners united in the Compagnia di Sant'Ermete. Polychrome marble altars followed in the side chapels, patronised by the leading families and confraternities of the quarter, reflecting the quarter's confraternities and leading families. In 1830 the painter Giuseppe Passano frescoed the nave vault with scenes from the life of John the Baptist, flanked by prophets and sibyls, and the dome was painted by the Milanese pair Felice and Giovanni Bella with figures of the Doctors of the Church. The basilica also preserves an altarpiece of Saints Erasmus and Nicholas, painted in 1629 by Ferdinando Glazer for the shipowners' chapel of Sant'Antonio alla Marina. Its lower part shows an early view of Finale Marina.