San Francesco, Baroque church building in Lerici, Italy.
San Francesco is a Baroque church in Lerici with a large central nave supported by six pillars. The interior features a high ceiling and several marble altars arranged throughout the space.
The current structure was built in 1632 on the site of an earlier church and was consecrated in 1636 by Bishop Giovanni Domenico Spinola. This rebuilding reflects how the community updated its religious spaces during the 17th century.
The Madonna di Maralunga is Lerici's patron saint, linked to three fishermen—Colotto, Giacopello and Muzio—who in 1480 found a three-panel painting of the Virgin on the Maralunga cliff. The image was brought into the church in 1810. Two of the original eight altars were dedicated to Mary, showing how widespread Marian devotion was in Lerici.
The church stands on Via Matteotti, in the countryside above the seafront where Lerici's older churches were built. The column in the churchyard in front of the facade almost certainly came from the previous building, and an epigraph on the right side of the facade records the official consecration.
The large marble column now standing on the square in front of the church almost certainly belonged to the 14th-century building. The earlier church also had eight side altars, each tied to a family or a religious group, such as the altar of the Crucifix assigned to the Aragoni, Rebelli and Accorsi families.
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