HISTORY
In the center of the principal piazza of Sarsina, looms the Cathedral dedicated to San Vicinio, patron and first Bishop of the city. It is considered to be one of the most remarkable and interesting Romanesque buildings in Emilia Romagna. The church was probably first built in the Byzantine period, and radically reconstructed around the year 1000 in Romanesque forms. Starting in 1656, a bishop named Cesar Righini decided to demolish the raised presbytery and the underlying crypt. The numerous transformations that followed in the course of the centuries, including the Baroque remodeling were all eliminated by an effective campaign of restoration carried out from 1958 to 1966, planned and completed by Carlo Bandini, who successfully restored the Cathedral to its original appearance.

ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
This imposing Romanesque edifice demonstrates a rather severe brick appearance, where the massive campanile forms a unified front with the gabled façade. In the upper register, the façade is sober and unadorned in warm brick, but is simultaneously elegant. The upper articulation consists of a thin saw-tooth cornice . The single apse, divided by two semi-columns, is well conserved and displays the same sobriety and the same cornice as the façade. In the lunette above the entrance is a mosaic depicting the titular saint with a Bishop’s miter and miraculous chain. Several spoliated Roman tombstones and paleochristian objects are located along the sides of the Cathedral. The interior structure is austere and solemn, consisting of a three-aisled, basilical plan, with a single apse, its ten bays articulated by pairs of brick piers, on which stone arches rest. The building is covered with a trussed ceiling. The sculptural program includes three particularly important pieces: a marble lectern from the 12th century, sculpted with the symbols of the Evangelists; an altar frontal of the 10th century, from the Abbey of San Silvestro in Summano at Montalto, that depicts Christ enthroned between two archangels; and a late-Roman baptismal font, with four stylized goat heads on the corners. In various spots around the church, traces of the original Roman pavement are visible, as well as of the old crypt.