HISTORY
The Duomo rises at the center of Bobbio’s urban fabric, in the province of Piacenza. The Duomo is a parish church, which, until 1986 was the seat of the diocese of the city, and subsequently co-Cathedral of the diocese of Piacenza-Bobbio. The history of the birth of the Cathedral is strictly tied to the origin of the city diocese as distinct from the territory of the Abbey of Bobbio. The Episcopal seat of Bobbio originated in 1014 by the Abbot, and later Bishop Pietroaldo, who resided at the Abbey. His death caused the separation of the two positions and the transfer of the new Bishop Attone in 1017 to the little old church of San Pietro. Subsequently in 1075, the Bishop-Count Guarnerio (1073-95) moved the seat of the diocese to the new Cathedral, dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin. Thus the construction of the Duomo of Bobbio was precisely during the Romanesque period, even if it underwent a series of alterations between the 13th-15th centuries.

ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
The rear façade dates from 1463, and features three portals and a rose window above. The façade is crowned by two towers, completed in 1532: the tower on the right is lower and houses the clock, while the one on the left is the true bell tower, which originally terminated on three sides with a trefoil arch and a single arch on the west side. Of the early Romanesque church, only the bases of the two façade towers and the perimeter wall decoration remain. The internal structure of the Cathedral is a three-aisled Latin cross, with chapels along the perimeter walls, covered by groin vaults. The exuberant neo-Gothic-Byzantine decoration is constituted by frescoes from the end of the 19th century, which are the work of Luigi Morgari, while the Byzantine decoration was completed in 1896 by Aristide Secchi.