Duomo di Modena

The foundation stone of Modena Cathedral was laid on 9 June 1099. Lanfranco designed the Romanesque church, whose facade is carved with Wiligelmo's Genesis reliefs; it still houses Saint Geminianus and anchors the World Heritage ensemble inscribed with the Ghirlandina Tower and Piazza Grande in 1997.

Why it matters

UNESCO inscribed the Cathedral, the Ghirlandina Tower and Piazza Grande together on the World Heritage List in 1997, and the justification begins with the cathedral itself: together with its bell tower it stands as a supreme example of a Romanesque ensemble. The church was raised as the house of Saint Geminianus, Modena's fourth-century patron bishop, on a design entrusted, according to the contemporary chronicle Relatio de innovatione ecclesiae Sancti Geminiani, to the architect Lanfranco through miraculous divine inspiration. What makes it extraordinary is not size but coherence: architecture and sculpture were conceived together, and Wiligelmo's facade reliefs changed the course of European stone carving. Restorations begun in 2006 also confirmed that its stone facing reuses material from Roman Mutina, folding the ancient city into the medieval one.

What to notice

Walk the facade slowly. Wiligelmo's Genesis reliefs, carved on reused stone slabs, narrate creation in four scenes, from Adam and Eve through Cain and Abel to the ark of Noah, with a directness that made them famous across the continent. The portals differ in character: the Porta dei Principi on Piazza Grande shows scenes from the life of Saint Geminianus, while the Porta della Pescheria on the north side carries telamons, the twelve Months at work, and early stone reliefs of King Arthur alongside tales of Phaedrus and the Roman de Renart. The great rose window and the Porta Regia belong to the Campione masters from Lake Lugano, who worked from the late twelfth into the fourteenth century. On the roof salients, look for the metopes with fantastical creatures; the originals are kept in the Duomo's own museum, with copies in place. Inside, the crypt holds the tomb of Saint Geminianus, and the art sequence runs from Guido Mazzoni's terracotta Madonna della pappa of about 1480-85 through the inlaid choir of the Lendinara brothers of 1465, the Altare delle Statuine by Michele da Firenze of about 1442, Dosso Dossi's Saint Sebastian of 1518-22, to Antonio Begarelli's terracotta Nativity of 1527.

Context and history

Building began in 1099 on the site of earlier churches, and the eleventh-to-twelfth-century campaign established the three-nave basilica with alternating columns and pillars and a raised presbytery over the crypt that so many later Romanesque churches imitated. The Maestri Campionesi added the rose window, the side portals, the Porta Regia facing Piazza Grande and a false transept between the late twelfth and early fourteenth centuries, while their 1170-80 ambo and pontile rank with the sculpture of the Parma Baptistery generation. Later centuries layered paintings and sculpture onto the Romanesque core without burying it: a polyptych by Serafino de' Serafini of 1385, a statue attributed to Agostino di Duccio around 1442, and a sacristy frescoed by Francesco Bianchi Ferrari in 1507 with Lendinara intarsia. In 1997 the cathedral and its square entered the World Heritage List, confirming a reputation the city had celebrated for nine centuries.