HISTORY
The Romanesque church is isolated from nearby houses, immersed in the green of San Faustino, a small town of Rubiera, one of the oldest of the diocese of Reggio-Emilia. The first document of its existence as a chapel can be found in the Cathedral archive of Reggio-Emilia, from the year 857. After being explicitly mentioned in a peace of 945, and in various imperial documents of Otto II and Frederick I, the church was elevated to a parish, dedicated to the martyrs Faustino and Giovita, during the pontificate of Urban III, in 1186. Thus, despite the fact that the 20th-century restorations revealed the foundations of the pre-existing 9th-century building, the present structure is datable to the 12th century. Later, after numerous renovations of the 17th century, as well as the product of the church’s precarious conditions, in 1853 a neoclassical structure was superimposed on the interior. On the advice of Dr. Malagola, the façade was restructured, preserving its original appearance, according to the typically Lombard-Romanesque style seen in the apses.

ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
The façade is partitioned by rectangular pilasters to the sides, and four semicolumns in the center, the inner two of which are small. The façade is crowned by blind arches. The entrance is adorned with marble columns and a canopy surmounted by a double window. Four octagonal pinnacles with crosses crown the top of the façade. The capitals on the canopy are the work of Michelangelo Aschieri of Verona, while the fresco of Saints Faustino and Giovita are by Francesco Rivara di Parma. The three-aisled church is divided into five bays by pairs of brick piers with stone capitals.