The Shrine of Santa Maria della Steccata is a Greek-cross design Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 church in central Parma

Parma

Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....

, Italy.

History

By 1392, the site held a small oratory to shelter a miraculous image of St. John the Baptist and was neighboring a religious confraternity that had an equally miraculous image of the Virgin and child on the facade. The popularity of the icons led to the construction, starting in 1521 and using plan by Bernardino and Giovanni Francisco Zaccagni with modifications by Giovan Francisco d' Agrate. The church was finally consecrated in 1539. The sacristy was rebuilt over the following centuries .

Interior decoration

The interior was decorated by prominent artists, both local and foreign to Parma. The Baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

 altar in the choir was begun by Mauro Oddi and completed in 1758-1765 by Andrea and Domenico della Meschina. In the sacristy and sanctuary, many of the fresco figures and decorations were painted or planned by a young Parmigianino

Parmigianino

Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola , also known as Francesco Mazzola or more commonly as Parmigianino or sometimes "Parmigiano", was an Italian Mannerist painter and printmaker active in Florence, Rome, Bologna, and his native city of Parma...

. Michelangelo Anselmi

Michelangelo Anselmi

Michelangelo Anselmi was an Italian Renaissance-Mannerist painter active mostly in Parma.-Biography:He was born, apparently in Tuscany, perhaps in Lucca, from a Parmesan family. He moved to Siena around 1500, where he is mentioned as painter for the first time in 1511. He was a pupil of Il Sodoma...

 painted a large fresco in the apse of the Coronation of the Virgin with Saints (1541) and a later Adoration of the Magi.

Other artists include Bernardino Gatti

Bernardino Gatti

Bernardino Gatti was an Italian painter of the Renaissance, active mainly in Parma and Cremona.Born in or near Pavia or Cremona. He is also commonly called il Sojaro. His early apprenticeship is unclear, though he is influenced by the pre-eminent local painters: Pordenone, alongside whose works...

, who frescoed parts of the ceiling. The Dutch painter Jan Soens

Jan Soens

Jan Soens , also known as Giovanni Sons, was a Dutch painter from 's-Hertogenbosch.-Biography:According to Karel van Mander he moved to Antwerp to live with a schoolmaster named Jacob Boon, whereupon he taught himself the rudiments of painting...

 painted a Holy family. Giambettino Cignaroli

Giambettino Cignaroli

Giambettino Cignaroli was an Italian painter of the Rococo and early Neoclassic period.He was born and died in Verona. He was a pupil of Santo Prunato and Antonio Balestra and active mostly in the area of the Veneto...

 painted a Trinity with Saints Niccolò, Basilius, and Gregory. A somewhat retrograde mannerist Madonna and Bambino, with Saints Joseph & George was painted by Marcantonio Franceschini

Marcantonio Franceschini

Marcantonio Franceschini , was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mostly in his native Bologna. He was the father and teacher of Giacomo Franceschini.-Biography :...

 in 1718. A mannerist Redeemer with St. Anthony of Padua and the Magdalen was painted by Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli

Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli

Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli was an Italian painter of the Parmesan school of Painting, active in the Mannerist style.Bedoli was born in Parma in a family coming from Viadana...

, based on a commission from 1605 for the price of 60 ducats and 76 soldi . The Parmesan painter Aurelio Barili

Aurelio Barili

Aurelio Barili was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, born and active in Parma. He painted frescoes in the Sanctuary of Santa Maria della Steccata in 1588.-References:...

 painted frescoes in 1588.

The church contains funeral monuments of Bertrando Rossi, Ottavio Farnese, Sforzino Sforza, and Adam Albert von Neipperg

Adam Albert von Neipperg

Adam Albert, Count von Neipperg was an Austrian general and statesman. The son of a diplomat, famous for inventing a letter-copying machine, and a French mother, he was the grandson of Wilhelm Reinhard von Neipperg....

.

In the crypt are the tombs of twenty-six members of the Farnese family including Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma

Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma

Alexander Farnese was Duke of Parma and Piacenza from 1586 to 1592, and Governor of the Spanish Netherlands from 1578 to 1592.-Biography:...

 and his wife Infanta Maria of Portugal

Infanta Maria of Guimarães

Maria of Portugal was a Portuguese infanta daughter of Infante Duarte, Duke of Guimarães , and Isabel of Braganza. She married Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma and Piacenza on November 11, 1565. She was a princess of Parma by marriage.-Issue:-Ancestry:-See also:...

. In a niche is a crystal urn containing the heart of Charles III, Duke of Parma

Charles III, Duke of Parma

-Early life:Charles III was born at the Villa delle Pianore near Lucca, the only son of Charles Louis, Prince of Lucca and his wife Princess Maria-Theresa of Savoy . He was given the baptismal names Ferdinando Carlo Vittorio Giuseppe Maria Baldassarre...

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