Description
The Cathedral of Christ the King is La Spezia's cathedral: a huge round drum that dominates Piazza Europa from the top of a flight of steps. It was designed by the rationalist architect Adalberto Libera and was only finished in 1975.
From the outside, it is the shape that strikes you: a bare, curved wall in the form of a hyperboloid, with no openings or decoration. The building rises 17 meters above the square, with a wide churchyard, partly a garden facing the hill, and three portals.
Inside, the surprise is the shallow dome, 50 meters across, with a polychrome oculus at its center through which the light pours in. A second band of stained glass runs all around the hall.
Twelve pillars eight meters high, one for each apostle, enclose the circular hall, which holds up to 2,500 people. The white and gray marble floor slopes gently down toward the central altar, like an amphitheater.
The altar, the ambo and the tabernacle in Carrara marble are by the sculptor Lia Godano. Hanging in the middle of the hall is an 18th-century wooden crucifix; also look for the bronze Deposition by Angiolo Del Santo.
Under the porticoes, at the level of the square, is the crypt: it holds the reliquary of St. Venerius, patron saint of the gulf, the tomb of the La Spezia mystic Itala Mela and those of the diocese's first bishops.
La Spezia only became a bishop's see in 1927, and a new cathedral was planned straight away. The site chosen was the flattened top of a hill that had just been leveled to join the old districts to the eastern ones, where the Capuchin convent once stood.
The 1930 competition drew 117 architects with 92 projects. The winner was the design by Brenno Del Giudice and the painter Guido Cadorin, but work stood still for more than twenty-five years: of that project, only the crypt was built.
In 1956 the commission passed to Libera: the first stone was laid in 1960, but the architect died in 1963 while the work was still underway. His collaborator from La Spezia, Cesare Galeazzi, finished the church with some changes, and on May 3, 1975 it was consecrated to Christ the King of the Ages.
Don't miss
• The dome with its oculus.
• The 18th-century wooden crucifix.
• The crypt with the reliquary of St. Venerius.
Did you know?
• By the postwar years the winning design of 1930 was outdated: in the meantime the square had changed, with the Town Hall and the Government Offices building.
• In 1954, even before the new project, the building was civilly named after the Pilgrim Madonna.
From the outside, it is the shape that strikes you: a bare, curved wall in the form of a hyperboloid, with no openings or decoration. The building rises 17 meters above the square, with a wide churchyard, partly a garden facing the hill, and three portals.
Inside, the surprise is the shallow dome, 50 meters across, with a polychrome oculus at its center through which the light pours in. A second band of stained glass runs all around the hall.
Twelve pillars eight meters high, one for each apostle, enclose the circular hall, which holds up to 2,500 people. The white and gray marble floor slopes gently down toward the central altar, like an amphitheater.
The altar, the ambo and the tabernacle in Carrara marble are by the sculptor Lia Godano. Hanging in the middle of the hall is an 18th-century wooden crucifix; also look for the bronze Deposition by Angiolo Del Santo.
Under the porticoes, at the level of the square, is the crypt: it holds the reliquary of St. Venerius, patron saint of the gulf, the tomb of the La Spezia mystic Itala Mela and those of the diocese's first bishops.
La Spezia only became a bishop's see in 1927, and a new cathedral was planned straight away. The site chosen was the flattened top of a hill that had just been leveled to join the old districts to the eastern ones, where the Capuchin convent once stood.
The 1930 competition drew 117 architects with 92 projects. The winner was the design by Brenno Del Giudice and the painter Guido Cadorin, but work stood still for more than twenty-five years: of that project, only the crypt was built.
In 1956 the commission passed to Libera: the first stone was laid in 1960, but the architect died in 1963 while the work was still underway. His collaborator from La Spezia, Cesare Galeazzi, finished the church with some changes, and on May 3, 1975 it was consecrated to Christ the King of the Ages.
Don't miss
• The dome with its oculus.
• The 18th-century wooden crucifix.
• The crypt with the reliquary of St. Venerius.
Did you know?
• By the postwar years the winning design of 1930 was outdated: in the meantime the square had changed, with the Town Hall and the Government Offices building.
• In 1954, even before the new project, the building was civilly named after the Pilgrim Madonna.