Chiesa di San Francesco d'Assisi

Just beyond Noli's medieval walls stands the former church of its Franciscan convent. Founded in the late thirteenth century and extensively remodelled in the seventeenth, the church preserves a Gothic portal and a bell tower beside a hall now used for cultural events.

Why it matters

The Friars Minor established their convent outside the walls of Noli, and the church became a burial place for prominent families, including the Spinola. Its fabric is dated to the fourteenth century, while its foundation is associated with Bishop Leonardo Fieschi in 1291. The building preserves the history of Franciscan religious life alongside the civic traditions of the small maritime republic.

What to notice

The church's orientation changed during seventeenth-century rebuilding: the former apse wall became the present façade. On the north side, medieval single-light windows and a Gothic portal preserve the earlier phase of the building. The interior includes side chapels and stucco work added during the Baroque remodelling. Its epigraphic collection includes two early dedications to members of the Spinola family. The fourteenth-century campanile, braced into a corner buttress, carries bells cast in 1362 and 1753.

Context and history

The convent stood along the road just beyond Noli's first walls. Its history as a burial sanctuary ended with the suppression of religious orders during the Napoleonic era, after which the complex passed to civic uses and lost much of its conventual fabric. The painter Vincente Suarez, active in Noli in the late eighteenth century, also worked here; his paintings are connected with Franciscan settings elsewhere. The former church is now used for concerts and other cultural events.