San Vitale Church, Baroque church in Parma, Italy

San Vitale Church is a Baroque church on strada della Repubblica in central Parma, near the Palazzo del Comune. Its yellow-plastered facade rises in two orders divided by a tall cornice, with three portals below and a rectangular window above the central marble-timbered doorway. The interior has a Latin-cross plan with a single nave, four side chapels per side behind marble balustrades, a projecting transept and a deep semicircular apse; a hemispherical dome with an octagonal lantern covers the crossing.

A church dedicated to Saint Vitalis stood here by the 9th century, traditionally founded by King Pepin of Italy. The present building was begun in 1651 by architect Cristoforo Rangoni, called Ficarelli, and sculptor Luca Reti, who designed the facade; it was consecrated in 1658 and completed in 1676 by Domenico Valmagini with the dome. In 1913 the property passed to the city.

The church is still the seat of a parish and belonged to the Compagnia del Suffragio from 1644, a confraternity protected by Duke Ranuccio II and his mother Margherita de' Medici. The Milanese noble Carlo Beccaria, the duke's treasurer and prior of the company, paid for the chapel of the Beata Vergine di Costantinopoli, where he intended his tomb; Domenico and Leonardo Reti made its stucco decoration between 1666 and 1669.

The building sits on Via Repubblica in the center of Parma's historical district and is easily accessed through the main entrance. Visitors should keep in mind this is an active place of worship, so appropriate clothing and respectful behavior are expected.

Under the main altar lies an urn said to hold the relics of Saint Vitalis, brought from Rome in 1648 by Gherardo III of Sissa. The church's former masterpiece, an Adoration of the Child by Correggio, survives only as a copy painted by Rondani.