Concattedrale di San Pietro, Noli site features

What is here is a thirteenth-century church inside a sixteenth- and seventeenth-century one. The fabric was raised in the thirteenth century from the fishermen's tithes; the bell tower, the perimeter walls and the internal pillars belong to the period of the 1572 promotion, and the transformation continued from the later sixteenth century.

The high altar is dated. Noli's record gives it as 1679, and singles it out as of value.

So is the bishop's seat. A cattedra vescovile of the sixteenth century — the furniture of a church that had just become a cathedral.

Two treasures are named. A processional cross in silver of 1417, and the Pallio di Sant'Eugenio of the fifteenth century — a cloth associated with the patron of Noli, the bishop from Africa buried on the islet of Bergeggi in 505 and translated here in 1192.

Its position is the other half of the point. It stands in the piazza della Cattedrale, inside the wall circuit, which is precisely the advantage it had over San Paragorio: the record calls it the nearer and more central church.

A church built from the fishermen's Sunday catch

The first structure was funded by tithes on the proceeds of fishing on feast days, collected in the thirteenth century. The name San Pietro dei Pescatori survived the promotion of 1572 and is still used in the town.

The cathedral title, taken in 1572

The title moved here from San Paragorio, outside the walls, because this church was nearer and more central. The campanile, the perimeter walls and the internal pillars all date from that moment.

A silver processional cross of 1417

Dated to the year, and the oldest precisely dated object in the building.

The Pallio di Sant'Eugenio

Fifteenth-century, and tied to the patron of Noli — the bishop from Africa whose relics were brought from the islet of Bergeggi in 1192, the year the republic was constituted. His feast is the second Sunday in July.

A high altar of 1679

Picked out as of value in Noli's own record, and the clearest trace of the seventeenth-century remodelling.

A sixteenth-century cattedra

The bishop's throne, contemporary with the arrival of the cathedral title rather than with the thirteenth-century church beneath it.

Co-cathedral, not cathedral

The diocese of Noli no longer stands alone: the church is now the co-cathedral of the diocese of Savona-Noli, and its parish sits in the vicariate of Finale Ligure. The republic's religious autonomy outlasted the republic by less than its buildings did.