The Pieve di Torrechiara is now inside the walls of the famous castle, but the original parish church was located in the valley near the Parma stream. The erosion of the torrent, following a flood, destroyed the ancient parish church in 1400.
It was in the 15th century that the parish church was rebuilt in its present elevated position at the behest of Pier Maria Rossi himself with the function of the oratory of the newly built castle village.
The church is located at the foot of the castle walls, near the current access to both the village and the castle itself.
The wall face of the church is in exposed stone, in some areas dry-stone and in others joined with mortar, and bears the traces of the various eras of construction and changes over time.
The facade is gabled, with a central portal surmounted by a walled slab reminiscent of work carried out in the church and a buffered lunette.
Originally, the flat apse of the church was located in this area until, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the building underwent a rototraslation. On the southwest side of the facade stands the square bell tower, completed by a bell cell opened on each side by a single lancet window.
The interior has a single nave concluded by a semicircular apse and two side chapels, one on each side. Presumably coeval to the two chapels are the two small rooms of ‘risulta’, one on each side, which, following the alignment from the front, connect to the chapels.
The covers of the hall and the presbytery are made in nailed barrel vaults, while the chapels have simple barrel vaults and a hemispherical dome is grafted onto the apse.
Of the ancient parish church today there is a sandstone lunette placed next to the jamb of a side door on the north side overlooking the village, which has moulding along the edges and a Greek cross in the centre.
The church is dedicated to San Lorenzo.
43013 Torrechiara
