Discover Basilica di San Biagio, Finalborgo

The basilica collegiata di San Biagio stands in piazza San Biagio, in the historic urban nucleus of Finalborgo, at Finale Ligure in the province of Savona. It is the seat of the parish community of the same name of the vicariate of Finale Ligure-Noli, in the diocese of Savona-Noli.

It has been a minor basilica since 1949. In April of that year Pope Pius XII raised it to that dignity.

Its saint is the town's trade. The cult of san Biagio, protector among others of wool carders, is probably one of the most ancient of the Finale; the production and trade of wool bales is a traditional Finalese activity first documented in 1128, in Genoa's customs regulation, where the inhabitants of Finale appear as exporters of wool and hemp.

The present building is the third. The church appears in writing only in 1261, then standing on the other side of the Aquila torrent with a shelter for the sick annexed; it was rebuilt within the walls in 1372-1375 in Gothic; and the church a visitor enters was built 1633-1650 by the Finale architect Andrea Storace on a Latin-cross plan, three naves and a central dome.

The plan is Latin-cross and the point of it is the angle. Three naves with a central dome, built 1633-1650 — and set at ninety degrees to the Gothic church it replaced, which is why the old campanile and apse ended up where they are.

The campanile is the Gothic survivor. Octagonal, with slender bifore, from the church of 1372-1375. An octagonal tower on a seventeenth-century Latin-cross church is a mismatch that announces itself from the street.

The Gothic apse is a fragment held by geometry. It and the apsidal chapels survive partially, in the short space between the seventeenth-century building and the walls of the Borgo — kept not by intention so much as by the fact that nothing was built over them.

The decoration is nineteenth-century on a seventeenth-century shell. The walls were frescoed and stuccoed only in 1878, and the work resumed in 1911. The sculpture is a century earlier and almost all by one family: Pasquale and Girolamo Bocciardo.

Three buildings in three places, or nearly. A church of unknown origin beyond the Aquila torrent, documented in 1261; a Gothic rebuilding inside the walls in 1372-1375; and the present church of 1633-1650, on the same site as the second but turned ninety degrees.

The demolition was partial on purpose, or at least in effect. The Gothic church was almost entirely demolished in the mid-seventeenth century to make space for a new building then already under construction. The tower and part of the apse were not taken down.

The architect is local and he worked on both sides of this comune. Andrea Storace, a Finale architect, built this church between 1633 and 1650 — and the parish church of Varigotti, down the coast, between 1624 and 1637.

One family made most of the marble. Pasquale Bocciardo the pulpit (1764-65), the presbytery balustrade and the high altar of 1799; his son Girolamo the font's basin and balustrades (1798). Pasquale shared a workshop with his uncle Andrea Casareggio in via Giulia, Genoa.

Why is the bell tower octagonal when the church is not?

Because it is older. The campanile, octagonal with slender bifore, belonged to the Gothic church of 1372-1375. That church was almost entirely demolished in the mid-seventeenth century for the present one, built 1633-1650 with its plan rotated ninety degrees — and the tower was kept.

Is anything left of the Gothic church?

Yes. Besides the campanile, the apse and the apsidal chapels survive partially, in the short space between the seventeenth-century building and the walls of the Borgo.

When is it open?

Unknown, and this page will not guess. No Mass time, opening hour or admission is published by anything readable: the Comune di Finale Ligure publishes none for any building in the comune, and no parish or diocesan page could be reached while this entry was written.

What is the altar made to look like cloth?

The high altar of 1799 by Pasquale Bocciardo. Its famous peculiarity is that the drape of the table seems to be of embroidered cloth but is in reality pure marble. Bocciardo was helped by his uncle Andrea Casareggio.

Why is so much of it from the convent?

Because the convent was confiscated and this church was not. Santa Caterina was taken by Napoleon during the Ligurian Republic and again by the Italian government in 1864; a good part of San Biagio's present furnishing came from there, including the Madonna delle Rose, the altarpiece from the convent's high altar, the 1626 triptych of its confraternity and, in 1805, the funerary monument of the last Del Carretto marquis.

Which saint was painted over?

San Gottardo. In the triptych of the Mystic Marriage of saint Catherine, brought here in 1626, he was modified into san Biagio by the addition of a carder's comb in his hand — the attribute of the town's own patron and of its wool trade.