Basilica of San Mercuriale

The basilica has very ancient origins because it was built on the remains of the parish church dedicated to Santo Stefano, already existing in the IV century. Destroyed in 1173 by a violent fire that broke out during a very heated battle between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, it was rebuilt between 1176 and 1181 in the Romanesque-Lombard style. The bell tower, type Lombard (1178-1180), rises to the right for over 70 meters and is surmounted by a conical cusp, perhaps added in the fourteenth century. Attached to the church is the fifteenth century rectangular cloister, belonging to the former monastery of the Vallombrosiani Benedictines, several times restored as a result of the use of time. Originally closed, it was opened on two sides in the 1930s. At the center a well with seventeenth-century well. The interior of the church, with a basilica plan, is divided into three naves by pillars of bricks. The floor is in Venetian mosaic. In the sixteenth century some lateral chapels were added, while in the years between 1646 and 1743 some reconstructions disfigured the structure, then restored in 1921. In 1955 it was restored after the damage caused by the Second World War.