Description
The Evangelical Baptist Church of La Spezia is the Protestant church on Via Milano, in the city centre: a soaring building with neo-Gothic decoration and perhaps the oldest Baptist church in Italy, with a story intertwined with the birth of modern La Spezia.
The building is striking for its strong vertical thrust and for its decoration, which borrows from the Gothic and the Renaissance in the historicist taste of the 19th century. It was decorated by Augusto Magli, and the complex brings together under one roof the church, some living quarters and a school.
That school has deep roots. It all began in 1866 with an Englishman, Edward Clarke, and his sister, who opened schools and orphanages for the boys and girls of a city that was growing before their eyes.
Their contribution to the city's schools and religious life was considerable, and the church was its fruit: it opened in 1870, just four years later.
These were the years of the new Arsenal: the old walls were coming down to make way for the working-class Umbertino district, the railway to Genoa was being completed and many immigrants were arriving in search of work. But life was hard, with unhealthy housing, few services and epidemics such as cholera.
Behind Clarke's work there was also high politics. The British and the Americans looked kindly on the Italy of the Risorgimento and its new unity, and the political motives went hand in hand with religious ones: bringing the people of La Spezia closer to Protestantism.
Under Fascism the work faded until it stopped altogether, and the girls' orphanage was sold: it is the building of the Alma Mater clinic. After the war another English missionary, Arrigo Alberto Pullen, took up the work again in the Gulf of Poets, long dear to English travellers.
The community is still alive and faithful to Clarke's principles, even though the challenges have changed: new immigration, welcoming refugees and dialogue between religions.
The building is striking for its strong vertical thrust and for its decoration, which borrows from the Gothic and the Renaissance in the historicist taste of the 19th century. It was decorated by Augusto Magli, and the complex brings together under one roof the church, some living quarters and a school.
That school has deep roots. It all began in 1866 with an Englishman, Edward Clarke, and his sister, who opened schools and orphanages for the boys and girls of a city that was growing before their eyes.
Their contribution to the city's schools and religious life was considerable, and the church was its fruit: it opened in 1870, just four years later.
These were the years of the new Arsenal: the old walls were coming down to make way for the working-class Umbertino district, the railway to Genoa was being completed and many immigrants were arriving in search of work. But life was hard, with unhealthy housing, few services and epidemics such as cholera.
Behind Clarke's work there was also high politics. The British and the Americans looked kindly on the Italy of the Risorgimento and its new unity, and the political motives went hand in hand with religious ones: bringing the people of La Spezia closer to Protestantism.
Under Fascism the work faded until it stopped altogether, and the girls' orphanage was sold: it is the building of the Alma Mater clinic. After the war another English missionary, Arrigo Alberto Pullen, took up the work again in the Gulf of Poets, long dear to English travellers.
The community is still alive and faithful to Clarke's principles, even though the challenges have changed: new immigration, welcoming refugees and dialogue between religions.