The Cathedral of Reggio Emilia is one of the three main religious buildings in Reggio Emilia

Reggio Emilia

Reggio Emilia is an affluent city in northern Italy, in the Emilia-Romagna region. It has about 170,000 inhabitants and is the main comune of the Province of Reggio Emilia....

 (Emilia-Romagna

Emilia-Romagna

Emilia–Romagna is an administrative region of Northern Italy comprising the two historic regions of Emilia and Romagna. The capital is Bologna; it has an area of and about 4.4 million inhabitants....

, northern Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

).

Built originally in Romanesque

Romanesque architecture

Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style,...

 style, it was largely modified in the following centuries. The façade had originally 13th centuries frescoes, now houses in the Diocese's museum.

The current façade is unfinished, with a 16th century covering in the lower level, with pilasters surrounding niches with the statues of the four patron saints of the city. The main portal has two statues in a style influenced by Michelangelo

Michelangelo

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...

, portraying Adam and Eve

Adam and Eve

Adam and Eve were, according to the Genesis creation narratives, the first human couple to inhabit Earth, created by YHWH, the God of the ancient Hebrews...

.

In February 2009 it was announced that a Roman mosaic floor filled with scenes depicting pagan rites and oriental gods was discovered underneath the Cathedral. The mosaic pavement, which measures 13 square meters and dates to the 4th century AD, was unearthed at a depth of about 4 meters below the ground during archaeological investigations in the crypt of the Cathedral. The size and design of the mosaic pavement suggest that it formed the floor of a huge room.