Lodi, San Francesco

The church of San Francesco is one of the principal mediaeval monuments of the city of Lodi.
Its origins date from 1252, when the bishop of Lodi, Bongiovanni Fissiraga, reintroduced the Minorite brothers into the city. They had been expelled a few years earlier for their intolerance of the Ghibelline faction, but he now assigned them the little church of San Nicolò. A few years later, presumably from the 1280s, the brothers began to build the new church, work on which must already have been advanced in 1290 when the vestments of Bishop Bongiovanni were accepted. The work was supported by Antonio Fissiraga (perhaps the nephew of the bishop) and his wife Flora dei Tresseni.
The church in Romanesque Gothic style presents an incomplete facade a little way above the central rose, which is characterised by its twin openings, a speciality of Lodi, created to give some lightness to the frontal structure. Immediately under the rose window is the protiro porch with ceramic columns on high plinths in stone.
The interior, with three aisles with lateral chapels and a transept, presents a type of architecture that is widespread in Lombardy, adopting the pointed arch system with cylindrical pillars and cross vaults. Inside, the church maintains the most complete collection of Lodi paintings starting from the 14th century, among which we should recall the votive fresco with “Madonna and Child, Saints Nicholas and Francis, and Antonio Fissiraga presenting a model of the church”. The artist, an anonymous Lombard master, who had good knowledge of the novelties of Gothic painting, is conventionally given the name of the Maestro of Fissiraga.
Finally, in the right hand nave, don’t miss the third chapel, called the chapel of St. Bernardino of Siena, with frescos by Gian Giacomo da Lodi in twenty-two frames with stories from the life of the saint, dating from 1477. The style of Gian Giacomo is easy and didactic, entirely free of late gothic elements, but at the same time chooses high intellectual content, such as the use of perspective, evidence of the passage to a humanistic phase.