HISTORY
The church of San Giorgio sits close to the eastern walls inside the fortified town of Vigoleno, a village of Vernasca. The Romanesque monument is well preserved and of primary interest, particularly for the immediately surrounding medieval context. The elliptical town is completely enclosed in crenellated defensive walls. The church is one of the most important examples of Piacentine Romanesque, built during the 12th century. It was once part of the church of Castell’Arquato, and subsequently rebuilt in 1346 as an autonomous parish church. In the 17th century, it underwent several Renaissance and Baroque alterations, including the addition of a narthex, an exterior chapel and the nave vaults. These interventions were all eliminated in the 20th-century restorations, which returned the building to its prevalently Romanesque appearance, austere and imposing. The original stone walls, in well-shaped ashlar, not easily differentiated from the substitutions of the restorations.

ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
The gabled façade demonstrates several plays on the multiplicity of planes, revealing a certain constructive maturity. The sides are recessed with respect to the central plane, and the portal projects still further. The portal contains colonnettes, sculpted with foliated capitals, surmounted by a lunette, and a four-step architrave. The lunette contains a relief of Saint George slaying the dragon, assisted by an angel, a clear work of the school of Antelami, probably from the 13th century. The campanile sits to the back of the church. The central apse is notably higher compared with the incomplete lateral ones, and is crowned with an elegant gallery of little arches and a cornice. The basilica is three-aisled and covered with a wooden-trussed roof. It is sober, austere and suggestive in its appearance.