History of religious architecture in Vicenza

[3] There is a lack of documents from the first millennium attesting to the number, denomination and time when the oldest minor churches in the city were built; the earliest that records them is a bull of Pope Urban III from 1186, in which all the donations made to them the previous year by Bishop Pistore were confirmed to the canons of the cathedral.

Particularly important for the religious life that took place there, for the privileges granted by the bishops and for the possessions was the women's monastery of San Pietro [it], built in the first half of the 9th century on the site of a very old chapel[12] (and where the parish church of the same name exists today).

This decadence continued throughout the mid-13th century; no attempt at church reform had any effect, at a time when the city's bishops were engaged more in defending the ecclesiastical patrimony than anything else and Vicenza was subjugated by the signoria of Ezzelino III da Romano, who manifested Cathar sympathies.

This interest was not without symbolic significance: at the end of the fourteenth century the municipality had the church of St. Vincent built in the main square, declared patron saint of the city, dependent on its authority and not on the diocese.

Between 1260 and 1270 Bishop Bartholomew of Breganze, supported by donations from the municipality and private citizens, had the church of Santa Corona built in the northeast sector not far from the Porta San Pietro gate and entrusted it to the Dominicans.

This church, too, was built with considerable contributions provided by private individuals and the municipality, in part derived from the confiscation of heretics' property: in this period, in fact, the Franciscans were entrusted with the office of the Inquisition.

During the 14th century, when the city was developing and new suburbs were about to be incorporated into the Scaliger walls, new hospices were also created inside, such as those of San Marcello[40] around 1320-30, Sant'Antonio Abbate[41] in 1350, and Santi Ambrogio e Bellino in Borgo di Porta Nova[42] in 1384.

Along with architectural structures, works of art with religious subjects multiplied; the demand for statues and ornaments with the use of stone and precious marble, canvases for altarpieces and frescoes attracted artisans and artists from other cities of the Republic or other Italian states and gave rise to local workshops.

In 1428 it supported, even more than Bishop Pietro Emiliani, the city's efforts to build the first church of Monte Berico in the late Gothic style, as fulfillment requested by the Madonna who appeared to Vincenza Pasini.

Twelve days later a solemn procession of city authorities accompanied Bishop Francesco Malipiero to lay the foundation stone of the church, which was completed in 1476; by 1483 all the altars were built, and in 1494 the one dedicated to St. Clare was consecrated.

Only the subjects depicted in statues and paintings inspired by religious tradition or classical mythology changed; but there was no lack, even in churches, of warrior symbols and coats of arms of the families that had financed their construction.

In 1666 – under the direction of architect Antonio Pizzocaro, who had drawn up the project – construction began on the convent and in 1684 on a new, larger church, which was also dedicated to St. Francis of Paola, founder of the Order and was called "one of the most conspicuous temples" in the city.

[68][69] The Somaschi Fathers, settled in the parish of Saints Philip and James and in charge of the education of youth and diocesan clergy, particularly in the new seminary, during the second half of the seventeenth century engaged in the rebuilding of the church and the construction of an imposing convent (current home of the Bertoliana Civic Library).

[64] In the early seventeenth century, once the work on the city's mount of piety had been completed, the Baroque-style construction of the facade and a monumental new entrance to the church of San Vincenzo, set into the palace, was commissioned as a sign of the centrality of Vicentine worship.

[64] When the plague of 1630 ceased, the mayors of the municipality in agreement with the Servites decided to enlarge the fifteenth-century church on Monte Berico; the architect Carlo Borella – realizing a design by Andrea Palladio from 1562, but departing from it in part – built the new basilica in the Baroque style.

[64] In Borgo Berga, mainly due to the impetus given by the patronage of the Valmarana family and the jurisconsult Giovanni Maria Bertolo, the new church of the Benedictine monastery of Santa Caterina and the oratory of the Zitelle, both attributed to Antonio Pizzocaro, were built at the end of the 17th century.

[64] Bearers of a religiosity that stemmed from popular faith and, at the same time, from the interests of the city's noble families, the confraternities created religious spaces – the oratories – true private churches in which mass was celebrated and the members of the sodality received the sacraments, attended services, and organized themselves in devotional practices and works of charity.

The advent, a few years later, of the Catholic Habsburg Empire did not restore the previous situation: not only had the real estate and artistic heritage disappeared, but also the benefices attached to altars, chapels and churches that formed the necessary basis for their maintenance.

Religious buildings no longer had the symbolic function of the past, when they had served to celebrate not only saints but also condottieri and military victories,[74] the splendors of the Venetian Republic and the papacy, the cultural identity of a mainland capital.

For the Church, it was not only a disadvantage: deprived of most of the material goods and constraints from which not even popes and local bishops had been able to free it, it was freer to rebuild its organization around diocesan parishes and to promote the more spiritual, cultural and theological aspects of its mission.

They were taken care of by Bartolomeo Malacarne and Giacomo Verda, the architects and town planners who were the authors of many normalization interventions in the city, and the Venetian Francesco Lazzari: all designed according to a strict Palladian neoclassical style, with criteria of maximum rationality and functionality.

Vicenza's complex ecclesiastical system, in its composition of diocese, parishes, monasteries and convents, religious orders and lay confraternities, heritages, privileges and benefices of the clergy, was profoundly modified in the early nineteenth century by Napoleonic legislation, which was preserved even under the Habsburg Empire.

The Sanctuary of Monte Berico and the Servants of Mary who officiated at it enjoyed considerable prestige in the city, so the resumption of religious life at the shrine was swift and led to the imperial decree of 1835, which reconstituted the convent.

This did not last long, because the new Kingdom of Italy also enacted laws to suppress religious bodies, and the convent part was used as a shelter, leaving the friars with only the church, which in 1895 was purchased by the Priests' Charitable Congregation.

[83] This part of the palace was destroyed by repeated Anglo-American air raids during World War II, and was rebuilt from 1947 to 1952, with the addition of the attic, in the center of which stands the large coat of arms of Bishop Carlo Zinato.

[83] Another complex, which at that time could be classified among the buildings of a religious and specifically Catholic character,[84] was the Major Cemetery, commissioned by the municipality to Bartolomeo Malacarne, who arranged it in 1815-16; located along a still depopulated stretch of the Via Postumia, it was completed in 1848.

However, the building was not immediately used for the function for which it was erected and was used several times for civilian purposes: in 1849 because of the cholera that struck the city, then until 1863 as barracks by Austrian troops, and finally throughout the duration of World War I as a military hospital.

[83] From the 1950s onward, on the other hand, under the effect of the population boom and internal immigration, the city expanded powerfully with the creation of entire new urban villages; this development was also matched by the diocese with the establishment of new parishes, in order to place churches at the center of the new settlements, according to the new pastoral vision proposed by the Second Vatican Council.

The apse and chancel, also an expression of a religious class separate from the laity, no longer found a place in the new church, nor chapels or side altars, which recalled the fragmentation of the Eucharist among so many benefactors and beneficiaries.

[83] Space, however, is essential; there are few images or devotional objects, which in other times served a didactic function; the word of God is proclaimed, no longer from the top of a pulpit, but – sometimes even by a layman or lay woman – through a modern communication apparatus.