Descrizione
The church and the vast adjoining convent are founded by a group of Humiliati from Erbusco in the late 12th century. The order's residence, established along the course of the Bova stream and near the Albera gate in the northwest corner of the walled city, was related to the need to collect tolls and mill levies, in accordance with the traditional powers attributed to the Humiliati. With the suppression of the order in 1571, the leadership of the convent was entrusted to the Sisters of Saints Peter and Marcellinus, who took up residence there in 1585. A century later, in 1670, the church was rebuilt to a design by Giovanni Antonio Girelli. In 1797 the convent was suppressed by the Napoleonic government, and in 1890 the apse was truncated to widen the street in accordance with the 1887 redevelopment plan, leading to the reversal of the orientation of the church and building a new facade on the street. The deconsecrated church, formerly home to the Notarial Archives, of which the balconies embellished with graceful wrought-iron railings remain, is currently used as an exhibition space by the C.AR.M.E. Association, while the other sections of the ancient complex were demolished in 1935.
Of the church it appears today, in particular, the imposing facade rebuilt after the truncation of the ancient apse, which led to the inversion of the interior. The new elevation is in neo-Gothic style with a gabled profile, characterized by alternating bands of terracotta and white stone. In the centre opens a very large three-mullioned window with pointed arches with a notched terracotta perimeter, inscribed within a wider arch of similar shape. Finally, a thick terracotta and stone band with small arches and indentations is placed at the crown. During the reconstruction, salvage elements of various types from the demolished apse were walled in throughout the facade. In the lower register, for example, some ancient inscriptions are noted, one of which mentions a xenodochium, or shelter for indigents and strangers. Above the triforium, bas-reliefs depicting a rampant lion, the civic coat of arms, and the two patron saints Faustinus and Jovita in the guise of armed knights, with spears and banner, were inserted instead. Finally, all around are other valuable recovered elements such as fragments of twisted columns, capitals and plinths walled into the facade in typical late 19th-century taste, found in other coeval city architecture such as the Castelletto dei dazi on San Faustino Street. Note, also on the exterior, the portion of the northern Romanesque apsidiole that still survives, in the lower right corner of the facade, characterized by a single-lancet window and a band of crowning arches. The internal structure is set on a single hall with a barrel-vaulted ceiling. The walls are decorated with pilasters of Corinthian order framing two chapels on each side, now devoid of any sacred furnishings. Instead, behind the high altar was a rectangular room used as the nuns' choir. The pipe organ and works once kept in the church are now missing or no longer traceable.
