The Church of Sanguinaro cannot be considered a parish church, however its important Romanesque remains and its particular history allow it to be remembered as a point of particular interest as it is located as a link between the main road, the Via Claudia (ancient name used in the Middle Ages to indicate today’s Via Emilia), and the parish churches of the surrounding area.
The church is in fact remembered as such, but also for its “hospitale” which received “the poor and powerless, the pilgrims, the healthy and the sick”.
The main front of the church has a small raised narthex in front of the entrance, as well as three arched openings. This small pronaos seems to be a legacy of the rooms that housed the pilgrims.
The northern front of the church, rebuilt in the twentieth century, is articulated in pilasters with high plinths and neo-Romanesque arches under the eaves.
Only in the apse portion, the church preserves the original structure of the Romanesque period, with river pebble masonry in the oldest part and brick in the late medieval upper part.
Inside, the building has a planimetric layout with three parallel naves with a semicircular apse in the main nave and a flat end in the secondary naves. The interior, with the exception of the apse area where 15th century frescoes are preserved, has a wall face plastered and painted in ivory white.
The hall is raised above ground level because under a large part of the nave there is the crypt, partially underground, which shows the development of the church’s naves.
Inside the crypt, accessible from the rectory, the bays are covered with irregular cross vaults supported by small rectangular brick pillars with rounded cubic capitals.
The internal lighting of the crypt is provided by two single lancet windows at the base of the apse which are clearly visible from the outside.
On the northern front is the twentieth-century Romanesque style bell tower with the fronts articulated by pilasters concluded with arches, mullioned windows in correspondence of the bell cell and cornice under the eaves with bricks arranged in sawtooth.
The church is dedicated to Saints Simon and Judas.
43015 Sanguinaro
