GENOVA - Chiesa superiore di San Giovanni di Prè

The commandery of San Giovanni di Pré is a complex consisting of two Romanesque-style Catholic churches, superimposed on each other, which make up the bulk of the architectural body, and a three-storey building, the commandery, i.e. the convent and the hospice (rooms on the ground floor), which performed the dual function of maritime station on the routes of the Holy Land and hospital (little hospital), initially for pilgrims and later for the sick and destitute of the city. The "hospitables", widespread in the Middle Ages, were places open to all, pilgrims and knights, healthy and sick, rich and poor, who found shelter and material and religious assistance there, according to the medieval conception according to which body care could not be separated from that of the soul. The current complex was built starting from 1180 and belonged to the Order of canons of the Holy Sepulchre; with the fall of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem, the order was dispersed and its properties in Italy passed to the Hospitaller Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. The foundation of the complex is due to Guglielmo di Voltaggio (commander of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta). The complex was mainly used as a shelter for pilgrims heading to the Holy Land at the time of the Crusades (in fact the Third Crusade sailed from Genoa in those years). The hospital of San Giovanni di Pré throughout the Middle Ages was an important point of contact between the land routes coming from Northern Italy and more generally from all of Western Europe and the routes that led from Genoa to all the ports of the Mediterranean . For centuries it was an essential point of reference for all those, knights, soldiers, merchants, clergymen and pilgrims, who for the most diverse reasons passed through here direct towards the shores of North Africa, Asia Minor and the Holy Land. After the recent restorations, the complex is almost intact in its Romanesque aspect, with the severity of the black Promontory stone walls, the warmth of the bricks, the elegance of the marble columns and the wooden ceilings painted with geometric and floral. The upper church is accessible through the adjacent Salita San Giovanni, an entrance that was created in the center of the ancient apse in 1731 when the church, until then for the exclusive use of the knights, was opened for public worship. The structure has three naves with a cross vault in black stone, supported by massive ribs and massive columns and considered one of the largest stone vaults among European churches. The lower church is accessed laterally through a portal opened in the portico under the right side of the complex. (I didn't take pictures as it was closed). The bell tower, with a square base, decorated with three orders of three-mullioned windows, was built at the same time as the church and was completed in the 13th or 14th century with the pyramidal spire with an octagonal base, a typical Genoese Romanesque element, surrounded by four pinnacles at the corners. Source Wikipedia: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commend... Filmed with SONY RX100M7 in 4K.