Address: Corso Matteotti – on the corner with Via Tomaso Minardi
Explaination: An interesting church of ancient and uncertain origins. The first certain document regarding the church dates back to 1206, even though there are controversial previous mentions (for example, one by the historian Mittarelli of 1128). The building was outside the city walls and isolated, away from the other buildings. On the left side, overlooking the main road, there was a portico built around 1300 and closed in 1752, but still visible today in its fundamental elements: four sandstone columns holding up three cotto arches. The portico, once called “de’ pellegrini” (of the pilgrims), was certainly for the emergency accommodation of the travellers, especially if they arrived at night and found the city gates closed. The church was the object of numerous renovations, the most important being during the mid 1700’s, doubtfully the work of Gianbattista Campidori or one of his collaborators.Today the church has a pleasant array of works of art, all “minor” but interesting from a historical and documentation viewpoint. Apart from the usual paper mache statues (very well done, such as those dating to the 1800’s and attributable to the Ballanti-Graziani studio) and various small paintings, there is the beautiful painting “S. Margherita and the dragon” of the late1600’s, the work of Orsola Missiroli, daughter of the painter Tommaso and who died in 1695 at only 22 years of age.
