HISTORY

The collegiate church of Castel’Arquato is located in the homonymous medieval village in the province of Piacenza. It dated to the eighth century, and more specifically 756-758 years, according with some objects found during excavations. Some evidences suggests that a powerful Lombard lord called Magno commissioned the church. Written documents, in fact, includes information on the rebuilding of the town (according to the structure of ancient medieval villages), and the enlargement of the Collegiate. However, they do not mention the date of the church's construction. It is supposed, therefore, that his baptismal church function goes back to ancient times. Following a violent earthquake, the structure suffered obvious damage, and was completely rebuilt and re-consecrated in 1122: the chronology of the church's origins is therefore problematic. We know that in the XII-XIII centuries, the bell tower located on one of the side aisles and the Portale del Paradiso (the Gate of Paradise) were built. The statues that adorn the pulpit represent the evangelists, Jeremiah and the Annunciation, and they are attributed the school of Piacenza of 1170. Also the cloister, the access leading to it, the sculptures located on either side of the main altar and minor altars in the church and also the decorated and carved capitals date to the twelfth century. Entering the central nave leaves a deeply impression of awe for the presence in the apse area of an austere and monumental crucifix, who dates from the thirteenth century. Other key elements were added in later periods: according to some witnesses, the physiognomy of the structure changed significantly after the mid-fourteenth century, when the nerve center of the city shifted from the spiritual center to the administrative center with the building of the nearby Palazzo del Podesta. Around 1630 a chapel, dedicated to the saint patron of the city San Giuseppe, was built in baroque style on the foundations of an old one. It was in the nineteenth century that the church had his major changes: the interior was fully coated, pillars and capitals included; single-lancet windows were all replaced by simple rectangular windows; a vault framed by stucco covered the truss roof. The frescoes were preserved and among them those executed by Giacomo Guidotti representing the marriage of Mary and the birth of Jesus and an anonymous fresco in which appears the Trinity. In 1730, one of the side walls was demolished to make way for three new chapels. In 1889, a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera discovered fifteenth century frescoes in the Santa Caterina chapel and reconstructed all of them after a long restoration work. In the early twentieth century, the church underwent other changes: for example between 1911 and 1913 the rebuilding of the loggia of San Giovanni and the fourth apse and between 1917 and 1919 the external restoration of the minor apses. In the same years, the main façade was also modified, closing a window on the left side and replacing the existing rose window with a mullioned window. In 1923, some of the supporting arches were rebuilt and in 1927, the choir windows were restored. In 1935, the roof was removed to make way for the original ceiling.

ART-HISTORICAL NOTES

The church has the shape and simple lines that are typical of Romanesque architecture. The baptistery is flanked by three apses, the latter being the more interesting because of the wide and low splayed windows as we can also see in the main apse. The lateral portal is a carved portal named Portico del Paradiso (Portico of Paradise): it is now the main entrance gate. It has a splay consisting in columns that end in an archivolt with its lunette. Leaves decorations adorn the capitals of the archivolt. Painted panels decorate the interior of the archivolt while two telamons with sculptures symbolizing the personification of Usury and Avarice support the architrave. The fourteenth century cloister is located on the church's right side and gives access to the Collegiate’s museum that preserves various Romanesque remains. The church is a basilica with three naves. Two portals allow penetrating inside, one on the front and one on the side. The seven columns dividing the aisles are impressive: they are nearly a meter in diameter. The decoration of the capitals is rather composite: their cloverleaf shape is dominated by semi-capitals carved with floral or zoomorphic symbols topped by a rectangular abacus with spiral decorations. The ambo sculptures depicting the Annunciation are of considerable artistic prestige.

HISTORY
The church of Santo Stefano is located between the Bentivoglio’s fortress and the clock tower inside the walls of the town of Bazzano who had a central role in the defense of the whole western area of the hills around Bologna. The first document attesting its existence dates from 798 and shows the function that assumed the old church in political conflicts that occurred between Modena and Bologna for the certification of landed estate belonging to the two municipalities. While in the tenth century the church was under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Modena, in 1204 it passed under Bologna. These legal vicissitudes ended with the final transition to the jurisdiction of the Church of Bologna in 1398 at the behest of Pope Boniface IX. Over the centuries, the building was affiliated with other churches of greater importance: for example, in 1155, it belonged to Monteveglio’s parish and between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it was one of the properties of the church of Sant'Andrea at Corneliano. In 1573 however, with the increase in population density, it became an autonomous church assuming the dependencies of the parishes of Crespellano, Pregatto, Oliveto, Montemaggiore and Montebudello. Between the sixteenth and seventeenth century, the Bentivoglio’s fortress was rebuilt, and this operation involved also the church, which took on its current direction, with the apse to the west and the entrance to the east. This was followed by further action of alteration of the original structure: in the eighteenth century, for example, architect Francesco Tadolini enlarged it with the construction of the Blessed Sacrament chapel; it was then enlarged in the early decades of the twentieth century with the erection of the left aisle. The last intervention was carried out in connection with the bombings of 1944, when it was decided to recover the original shape of the structure: so the current facade, dating back to the restoration of 1945, recalls in particular the Romanesque style and in the same way the half-columns, capitals, and rose-window.

ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
After the discovery inside the church of one of the oldest artifacts currently surviving, probably a stone portal fragment in Lombard or Carolingian style, we cannot exclude a Byzantine origin of the structure. The church was, in fact, influenced by the Romanesque style, which leaves its traces for example in the presence of a fragment of sandstone capital decorated with a rosette with seven petals and shapes of lily, preserved today in the communal museum "Arsenio Crespellani" in the fortress of Bentivoglio. At that time, the building also had a typical Romanesque structure with a single nave and an apse facing east. Now the church has a tripartite nave with an apse facing west, with a flat front. Inside the church are exposed modern artistic works, such as the Santo Stefano of Simon Cantarini placed on the altar and some paintings of Gaetano Gandolfi.

HISTORY
The Basilica of San Savino is one of the most important architectural remains of the Romanesque period in northern Italy. Situated on Alberoni Street in Piacenza, it is dedicated to the second bishop of the city and the founder of the basilica in the fourth century, probably in 394. In this period, San Savino sought to organize the spiritual and community life of the people of his parish. He died in 420: his successor, San Mauro, decided to keep his body in the church, placing it in the main altar. In 902, the Hungarians arrived in Piacenza and destroyed in a large part the building that was rebuilt a second time in 903 by the bishop Everardo. In924 a second raid razed it to the ground again but it was completely rebuilt in the eleventh century. The first document mentioning its existence dated October 15, 1107, year of the consecration of the Basilica by Bishop Aldo. The church had a great period of prosperity until the late fifteenth century, when in 1495 it passed to the Geronimini fathers. The building underwent several transformations in the Baroque period: in 1721, for example, the façade was rebuilt with a porch supported on twin columns. In later centuries, there are not further modifications of the original mapping: only in 1903 began a long intervention of restoration directed by Ettore Martini, who decided to abide by the Baroque façade and restore only the interior of the church.

ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
The basilica seems inside very rational and severe: brick walls, arches and stone pillars give an impression of sobriety. The church is a classical basilical plan, with three naves ending in three apses. Seven pairs of bundle pillars support the vaulted ceiling. Capitals are all carved with zoomorphic or fantasy figures. There are three spans in the nave and in the aisles. In the third span, there is the presbytery that is connected to the crypt by a staircase. The two floor mosaics preserved in the presbytery and in the crypt are outstanding: the first is a metaphorical composition featuring cardinal virtues through knight fight scenes and animals of all kinds while the second, the oldest one, represent the twelve months of the year. The crypt is underground and it extends lengthwise under the presbytery. The space of the crypt is divided into three naves and eight spans, with a vaulted ceiling supported by pillars. There are thirty carved capitals. Another interesting element in the basilica is the crucifix in the apse, which is one of the few objects in carved wood that we preserved from the Romanesque period. On the northern side of the building stands the central apse and a smaller apse, both rebuilt in modern times. On the opposite side, the belfry reminds Lombard influences.

HISTORY
The Cathedral of Parma, together with the nearby baptistery, is one of the most important monument of Romanesque art in the Po valley. The structure of the cathedral is quite complex, reflecting the many architectural changes it underwent over the centuries. Great artists worked on it, many important Italian sculptors well known in the Romanesque period such as Benedetto Antelami (1150-1230 AC). During the sixteenth century, many painters went on with the embellishment of the building: beautiful frescoes, among which the famous “Ascension of the Virgin” made by Correggio between 1526 and 1530, covered the walls and ceilings of the church. The building is a mixture of two Romanesque styles: the "Lombard" style that we can also see in the cathedrals of Piacenza and Cremona, both architectonically very similar to that of Parma, and the “Germanic" style reinterpreted here according to the local manners. The consecration to St. Mary of the Assumption (Santa Maria Assunta) dated to 1106 under Pope Pascal II. A document dated 884 attests the existence of a primitive church "infra civitatem parmensem”.
The construction of the actual cathedral began under Bishop Cadalo (1046 - 1071), after a fire that in 1058 destroyed the previous church. The Chronicles of Parma (Chronicon Parmense) tell about a terrible earthquake in 1117 that caused many damages (“Ecclesiae Sanctae Mariae magna pars dirupta est"). However, works continued and ended in 1178. On that year, Antelami worked on a pulpit of which remain today only the element representing the Deposition of Christ.

ART-HISTORICAL NOTES

EXTERNAL
Its gabled façade is the result of a delicate balance between structure and decoration, which integrate each other according to the padano-Lombard tradition, as we can also see on the facade of San Michele in Pavia. Its stone structure is composed of three levels. The first includes three portals of which the central has a decorated prothyron with column-bearing lions executed in 1281 by Giambono Bissone. The second part is composed of two orders of three mullioned loggias with Verona marble columns. On the bottom edge of the arc of the prothyron is carved a relief with the cycle of the months, which dates back to the twelfth century. The continuous frieze of the portal represents hunting scenes and monstrous animals. The decoration of the façade shows the same overlapping loggias of the apses, generating strong chiaroscuro contrasts. The presbytery outside is characterized by plastic effects thanks to the succession of square and semi-cylindrical volumes, decorated with pilasters and blind arcades ending with loggias. The bell tower is square with thin vertical pilasters, according to the typology of the Lombard Romanesque style. The elegant three-mullioned window and the crowning spire, dating from the end of XIII century, are clearly inspired by Gothic.

INSIDE
The plan of the Parma Cathedral is a Latin cross with three naves and a transept that ends with semicircular niches. The clustered and composite columns give a vivid impression of verticality. They are decorated with capitals and half columns upon which lean high ribbed vaults. The interior is both majestic and imposing. The woman’s galleries consist of four mullioned windows with capitals decorated with herbal motifs and symbolic themes as the Woman of the Apocalypse (Signora Dell'Apocalisse). The rings of the arches lean on corbels carved in the shape of animal or human head. The sleek appearance of the structure is enhanced by the raising of the presbytery finished with the tiburio in which was built the famous dome in the sixteenth century. The vast crypt under the presbytery has cross vaults on carved capitals with phytomorphic motif from XII century. The capitals of the nave are probably later. The sculptures are not homogeneous and probably are carried out by several artists. The Master of the Month (Il Maestro dei Mesi), however, seems to have been particularly active: he works also on the development of sculptures inside of the building and in particular on the cycle of months in the prothyron. The most important sculptor was, however, Benedetto Antelami. The bishop’s throne is monumental: both telamons, the representations of Saint Georges killing the Dragon and the Conversion of St. Paul, are harmoniously integrated into the cubic structure of the throne. Antelami comes off in the Deposition of Christ to the realism of Wiligelmo (who decorated the Cathedral of Modena), reviving the content and getting elegant and balanced sculptures that show his adherence to the models beyond the Alps, probably due to a stay in Provence. An herbal fascia frames the relief in which there are inscriptions with the names of the characters in the scene. At the top on the right, there is the sculptor's signature. The figures are firmly anchored to the bottom frame and the draperies are well-defined creating strong contrasts of light and shadow. The Cross of Christ harmoniously divides the scene into two equal parts: to the right the Christian world and to the left to the pagan. This division is emphasized by the representation of the sun and moon symbolizing good and evil respectively. It reflects a gothic taste, also visible in the Parma Baptistery in which Antelami worked around 1200.

HISTORY
The idea of a new cathedral for the town of Ferrara coincides with the will of autonomy of the city, which was at that time under the influence of the diocese of Ravenna. In 1139, the bull of Innocent II confirms both Ferrara’s independence from Ravenna and the approval for the construction of a new cathedral that began in 1133. It had among its main donors Guglielmo Adelardi, to whom belong the basic ideas about the building. A tombstone found during the works of restoration in 1925 certifies that "Glielmo fo l’auctore", as well as the main financier of the work, and that the hand of the beautiful sculptures that enrich the cathedral belong to Nicolaus, student of Wiligelmo and Lanfranco in Modena. The cathedral that today stands majestically on the square is the result of numerous renovations after the thirteenth century, evidenced by the extreme heterogeneity of styles that you can read on it. A number of significant actions date back to Ercole I, who commissioned Biagio Rossetti, the most important local architect, to work on the building. On that occasion, Rossetti widened the choir and built the apse. In the interior of the church, the aisles had its present-day Baroque appearance only after a disastrous fire that destroyed the previous structures.

ART-HISTORICAL NOTES

EXTERNAL
The Romanesque style is evident especially in the lower part of the building, for example in the imposing and austere white wall on which there are three large portals. Fulcrum of the whole building is the wonderful porch that is one of most interesting of the Po valley Romanesque for variety of reliefs and sculptures. It is attributed to the great sculptor Nicolaus. The majestic main entrance below has in the archivolt a beautiful lunette, in which is represented the legendary battle between San Giorgio, saint patron of the city, and the dragon. The Gothic style loggia, dating from 1250, opens with three decorated arches in the center of which, between two double lancet windows, there is a Madonna and Child of the XV century. Over the loggia, the stories of the last judgment developed on three levels.

NORTH SIDE
The north side of the cathedral, which takes place on Adelardi’s street, retains its Romanesque structure because it never had successive interventions. Materials used for the construction are bricks. There are also two ancient fortified gates: the largest, called the Gate of Judgment, led to the old cemetery.

SOUTH SIDE
The south side of the building, which is developed on Trento Trieste’s Square, retains its Romanesque appearance in the sequence of arches supported by half-columns that drop to the ground. The shops opened under the porch in the Loggia dei Merciai, also if they have not been kept in the old form, are interesting. About halfway along the length of the side, the Romanesque gallery is interrupted by an arch, which is what remains of the Months portal destroyed in 1717. The original tiles are preserved in the Cathedral Museum. The author of this beautiful cycle of sculptures, characterized by an intense plasticity, is known as the Master of the Months.

HISTORY
The Abbey of San Mercuriale faces the south side of the Piazza Aurelio Saffi, the most significant monumental Romanesque complex of the entire province of Forlì. The reconstruction of its ancient origins remains difficult due to the lack of secure historic documentation of the foundation of the early church and of the legendary figure of San Mercuriale to whom the church is dedicated. The first document that attests to the existence of a Benedictine monastery located outside the walls (the medieval walled city was further west with respect to the modern), is an act of donation of April 8, 894 by the Archbishop of Ravenna to the abbot of San Mercuriale in Forlì. Prior to that, there are only uncertainties and suppositions. The tradition suggests that in the fourth century San Mercuriale, bishop of the ancient city of Forum Livii, founded the first Christian church dedicated to Santo Stefano—the original cathedral—east of the city walls. Some time after the foundation, the cathedral was transferred inside the walls to the church of Santa Croce and the early church, located in the present-day center of Forlì, was transformed into a sanctuary containing the remains of its founder and a Benedictine monastery was also founded there. The history of the period after the year 1000 is rich with bequests and donations that attest to the expansion of the monastery and the development of the city to the east. Forlì eventually engulfed the territory of San Mercuriale, resulting in its inclusion within its new walls. A ruinous fire of 1173 destroyed much of the city and the monastery. In its wake, works of reconstruction were begun to build a new abbey in the Lombard Romanesque style on the site of the former church’s ruins. Baroque additions followed between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, and were later eliminated by the bombardments of the Second World War and the twentieth-century restorations that aimed to return the monument to the Romanesque physiognomy that had distinguished it since 1176.

ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
On the exterior, the façade, the result of modern reconstruction, is interesting primarily due to the portal lunette, containing an important Romanesque sculptural ensemble. In the center is the adoration of the Magi, the Virgin and child with Joseph to the right, and the story of the dream of the Magi to the left. These sculptures, originating from the School of Benedetto Antelami, can be ascribed to the thirteenth century, particularly resembling the hand of the Maestro dei Mesi di Ferrara. The seventy-five-meter campanile, located on the right side of the abbey is one of the tallest and most interesting Lombard Romanesque campanili. Built in 1178 under the direction of Francesco Deddi, it has a square plan and a conical spire, encircled by four turrets around the base of the spire. Blind arches connect the Lombard bands that divide the campanile sides in three. Transversally, cornices and corbel tables divide the tower into five stories. The fifteenth-century cloister of the Vallambrosian monks is behind the tower. Its two sides are constituted by loggias open to the outside and inside.

The interior of San Mercuriale is typically Romanesque: sober and severe nude brick. The reconstruction may well represent an attentive repetition of the twelfth-century Romanesque. The basilical plan has a three-aisled nave, without a transept, the nave divided into three super bays by round transverse arches. Each super bay is subdivided into three bays by longitudinal arches. The third bay was formerly divided into two floors—one elevated for the monks and a crypt below where the clergy officiated—but the division was not rebuilt following its collapse in 1505. The walls of the third bay suggest the original structure through the presence of two superimposed orders, the lower arches indicating the former crypt and the upper, the elevated presbytery.

Other monuments on the interior include the column-bearing lion from the porch that used to surround the portal; the chapel containing the fifteenth-century tomb of Barbara Manfredi, wife of the lord of Forlì, by Francesco di Simone Ferrucci from Fiesole, and a chapel with the frescoes of Marco Palmezzano (1459-1539). At the end of the southern aisle is an early-medieval stone cross and the Cappella Mercuriale, which contains the remains of the patron saint, as well as interesting frescoes of Livio and Gianfrancesco Modigliani, commissioned by the influential Gerolamo Mercuriali (1530-1606).

Suggested Reading:

G. Spinelli, San Mercuriale a Forlì, in Monasteri benedettini in Emilia-Romagna, Milano 1980.

S. Stocchi, "San Mercuriale a Forlì," in Italia Romanica. L’Emilia-Romagna, Milano 1984.

A. Colombi Ferretti, L. Prati, U. Tramonti, Il complesso monumentale di San Mercuriale a Forlì: restauri, Forlì 2000.

HISTORY
An historical reconstruction of the cathedral of Reggio Emilia, located on the Prampolini Square, is hard because of the various construction phases and numerous restorations over the centuries, still ongoing. Until 903, the oldest documents show the cathedral of Reggio as San Prospero, which is the church located outside the town walls. The Bishop of Reggio decided to build a new cathedral dedicated to Santa Maria, already established in 857, by the powers conferred on him by the king Ludovico III and through the Act of donation of 31 October 900 in response to a raid by Hungarians. Thus, it is likely that the first cathedral of Reggio Emilia had been raised in its current position, between the years 904 and 942. Before there was probably a pagan temple, which was destroyed by order of Constantine, dedicated to Bacchus or Apollo. It is from 979 that the new cathedral began its period of maximum extension, when the bishop Ermenaldo helped strengthen its role by placing the remains of San Prospero. It is also assumed that the cathedral was rebuilt after the year one thousand at the end of the eleventh century, in according with the building dates of the greatest Romanesque cathedrals of other cities of Emilia Romagna as Modena and Fidenza. Reggio’s Cathedral had inside in the sixteenth century an inhomogeneous appearance: its Romanesque structure coexisted with the cross vaults of the fifteenth century and the Renaissance apses and transept. In the sixteenth century, the facade was rebuilt by Prospero Sogari, called "the Merciful", who concealed all the lower part to place marbles from the new project. The interior underwent a real homogenization work, with which the Sienese architect Cosimo Pugliani incorporated the old Romanesque structure in a Doric trabeation. In 1623 on the transept was erected the dome that was built by the priest Paul Messori and decorated in 1779 with frescoes designed by the designer Francesco Fontanesi.

ART-HISTORICAL NOTES 
The old structure of Reggio‘s cathedral, after a presupposed reconstruction in the eleventh century, was rebuilt in the same Tuscan style of San Miniato al Monte in Florence. It had a Latin cross with three naves and a transept. It was marked by the presence of a transverse nave that, together with an apse chapel, replaced the third span of the typical Tuscan style. Another foreign element in this Tuscan scheme is the octagonal dome cladding, built in 1269 during the so-called “restauro Malaguzzi”. It overlooked the front of the church and it is now detectable only on the outside, highlighted by the actual steeple. From year one thousand, various works of considerable artistic value were also carried out: frescoes, columns, capitals and the remains of the galleries from the Romanesque period. Among them there were also a mosaic floor from XII-XIII centuries, a Byzantine fresco with Christ in a mandorla with angels and saints that adorned the facade of the church until 1960 and the remnants of the ambo by Antelami’s school from the early thirteenth century.
In these years was probably built the crypt in which was found an interesting high relief of the Pantocrator, which comes from the parapet of the pulpit standing over the crypt. This sculpture has been dated between 1220 and 1230 and it is attributed to the circle of Antelami. The same attribution had the column-bearing lions, which probably held up the supporting columns of the pulpit of the Cathedral. The building has a cruciform plan that consists in the nave, transept and choir. Pillars divide the nave from the aisles. On the sides of the aisles open five chapels, where there are the most important tombs, paintings and works of famous artists from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries including Bartolomeo Spani, Domenico Cresti called Passignano, Cristoforo Roncalli, called Pomarancio, Orazio Talami, Palma il Giovane, Annibale Carracci e Giovan Francesco Barbieri called Guercino.

HISTORY
Santa Maria Assunta is located in the small town of Bordone. The church preserves its medieval nucleus despite various later renovations. It is situated along the historic Via Francigena, an important thoroughfare for pilgrims that constituted the principle network in the Roman period between Parma and Lumi, while in the Lombard period, it was the only link between Tuscany and the Po Valley. Santa Maria Assunta is found at about the halfway point on the pass through the Apennines, and became a fundamental stop for pilgrims traveling to Rome. Its existence was first documented in 1005, though recent restoration work has revealed the presence of much older foundations predating the road, possibly from about the 7^th century. In its present form, the structure has been radically modified over time, particularly in the interventions completed between 1640 and 1670 conforming to the directives of the Tridentine reform.

ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
The church that is ascribable to the Romanesque period was adapted from a preexisting building from the 9^th century, that had an apse and ashlar masonry. However, recent art-historical research has highlighted the possibility that the Carolingian structure was itself built on top of a 6^th-century Byzantine church, which was probably centrally planned, with the apse in the east. The church today has a single nave, terminating in a flat-ended apse, with lateral chapels from the 16^th and 17^th centuries.

HISTORY
The Romanesque parish church of San Prospero is located in Colecchio, a commune in the province of Parma, on a small hill overlooking the countryside. It was built in the 11^th century in the Lombard Romanesque style, on the ruins of an ancient pagan temple. It was later dedicated to San Prospero, a Bishop who enjoyed a strong devotion in Reggio Emilia during the Middle Ages. According to several 14^th-century sources, the Hospital of Santa Maria was quickly added to the parish church, run by the Capuchins and today home of the parish offices.

ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
The Romanesque parts of the church are difficult to distinguish today. There have been numerous interventions to the structure over the centuries that radically compromise its original appearance. The first restorations were in the 13^th century: the expansion of the original plan and the construction of the raised choir, the three aisles, and the campanile. In the 15^th century, there were further restorations, covering up the trussed roof, the construction of the vaults and the lateral chapels. In the 16^th century, six chapels were added to the sides of the church, which were demolished in later restorations. The church did not undergo any further substantial restorations until 1922, when it was decided to restore the church to its original splendor. It was during that campaign that the façade was rebuilt, as well as a new Romanesque campanile, not attached to the church, and modeled on the tower at Parma’s Duomo. In 1935, the front was demolished and the old portal was inserted on the façade.

HISTORY
The church of San Tommaso di Cabriolo, in the area bordering Borgo San Donnino, belonged to the Order of the Knights Templar. Its original foundation was probably part of land donations to the Order from the most prestigious families of Parma at the time. It was originally a dependency of thedomus of Santa Maria Maddalena di Toccalmatto, from which it successfully detached itself.
An oratory at the site was already attested to in the 11^th century, but it was its passage to the Templars at the end of the 12^th century that instigated the a new construction. The church was formerly dedicated to Thomas Becket. In addition to the Rotonda, there was also a hospital. In 1230, in the Capitulum seu Rotulos Decimarum of the diocese of Parma, under the Bishop Grazia, the church was cited as the Ecclesia de Cacobrolo in plebe Burgi Sancti Domnini. The estate was sacked and burned in 1309, leaving only part of the apse from the Templar phase. The complex thus remained in a state of semi-abandon, until sometime between the end of the 14^th and the beginning of the 15^th century, when new patrons rebuilt the church, reutilizing part of the original building. The Knights of Malta maintained the commendam of San Tommaso until the Napoleonic suppressions when it passed into private hands.

ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
The church is one of the most notable examples of architecture of the knightly orders in Emilia Romagna: the stone apse today reveals the remains of the rotunda, decorated by blind arches and lancet windows. The nave is from a later constructive phase by the Hospitallers, along more Gothic lines. The gabled façade was drastically rebuilt in 1816. The 15^th-century reconstruction probably concluded with the pictorial decoration of which important traces remain along the left wall.