San Bernardino, Former religious complex in Caravaggio, Italy

San Bernardino in Caravaggio consists of the church of San Bernardino and the convent of Santa Maria degli Angeli. The church has a single nave with three small polygonal chapels on the left; at the end are two more chapels and a short corridor to the presbytery, with the apse and a small square bell tower.

The convent was consecrated in 1489, shortly after Bernardino of Siena's death in 1444 and his canonisation by Pope Nicholas V in 1450; tradition credits the Caravaggio townspeople's enthusiasm for his preaching, which also brokered a peace between Caravaggio and Treviglio. The French government suppressed it in 1798 and definitively on 11 May 1810, after which the buildings became a farmhouse and barracks while the church stayed in use. Caravaggio bought part of the complex in 1970, and the civil hospital donated the church to the town in 1978.

The church keeps a 1531 fresco cycle of the Passion of Christ attributed to Fermo Stella, who signed a Madonna with Saints Bernardino and Roch on the wall between the first two chapels by means of a rebus. The first chapel's frescoes are ascribed to the Treviglio painters Bernardo Zenale and Bernardino Butinone; the third chapel was repainted in 1944 by Trento Longaretti.

The former convent buildings now house Caravaggio's civic centre, the municipal library and a museum, while the church of San Bernardino remains a place of worship. The church kept its original form through the centuries, so visitors can read its single-nave layout and chapels as built. Access to the different parts depends on the civic institutions housed there.

On the wall dividing the nave used by the faithful from the friars' part of the church stands a large fresco cycle of the Passion of Christ, dated 1531 and attributed to Fermo Stella. Stella, a painter from Caravaggio, also signed a fresco of the Madonna with Saint Bernardino and Saint Roch between the first two chapels using a rebus.