Photos and stories from the city of Genoa.

My travel photos

The Cathedral of San Lorenzo is one of the largest temples on the territory of Genoa, at the same time - the chair of the local archbishop. It was built in honor of St. Lawrence near Ferrari Square, the Ducal Palace and the prestigious hotels of Genoa.

When I was on the square in front of the cathedral, which is called Piazza San Lorenzo, I was not impressed by the scale or decoration of the cathedral. But I enjoyed looking at the facade, asymmetrical towers, one of which was not completed due to lack of money.

But I was sincerely pleased with the sight of different people on the steps of the staircase leading to the cathedral.

Especially I liked the couple who snacked something. They seemed very nice to me. I made several frames. I think it's the people of Genoa.

Since I touched the stairs to the cathedral, I will tell you about the cathedral.

As I said the the temple has an asymmetrical design, on the sides of the facade tower two towers, different in structure.
The left tower was not finished, on the top of its truncated volume a gallery was built. In the right belltower there are seven bells.

The facade of the cathedral is decorated with three portals, to build which invited masters from France, they stand out against the general background, which indicates that the church wanted to turn the Gothic temple in the image of the Gothic cathedrals in France. Simultaneously, the polychrome design of the portals fully corresponds to the architectural tradition of Genoa.

On the central portal there is an image of Christ with St. Lawrence, on the sides there are reliefs that interpret the tree of Essen.

A wide staircase leads to the facade of the building, the sides of which are decorated with two stone lions, made by a 19th-century sculptor Carlo Rubatto. Two more lions rise on the central kortforsah, which divide the facade into three parts. These lions are made by masters of the school of the sculptor of Italy, Benedetto Antalami, who created at the turn of the 12-13 centuries.

Two more Romanesque portals are in the cathedral itself, one of them was built in 1130 on the northern facade of the building, it is designed in honor of St. John, decorated with reliefs in the style of Cosmati. The second portal contains reliefs in the Pisa style, it was built in the 12th century.

About miracles

The cathedral could be destroyed in 1944. English pilots bombed Genoa and one of the bombs broke through the roof and fell onto the marble floor but did not explode. It was considered a craft by God and a miracle and now this bomb is in the temple as a shrine.

Small secret

The carving on the facade of the cathedral keeps secrets. I can tell you one of them.

Near the main entrance to the cathedral at the level of the head to the right of one of the two doors in the church that is closest to the nearby street San Lorenzo you can see a small carved figure of a sleeping dog. It's not easy to find it but possible.

The legend says that its St. Lawrence's dog. He loves his gog as a friend very much. And it was carved into the memory of its friendship.
At first he wanted to put the big sculpture on the fasade but he wasn't allowed to do it. He decided buried his favorite at the foot of the temple. And her epigastric sign made barely noticeable. Here is a story about fidelity, carved into marble.