Church of San Giorgio Martire and the Capuchin Convent

The church and the ancient convent of the Capuchin monks.

Explaination: The church together with the convent were built in 1581 by an unknown architect. The church with its simple “capanna” façade faces north where there is the only door and only large window, facing above a square narthex with portico on three sides and closed by an artistic wrought iron fence towards the road that leads to via Emilia.The inside has a nave covered by a cap vault and includes the main chapel and two large side chapels; behind the main altar open up the choir stalls of the monks. Some of the works of art include the altars of the three chapels, all wooden, a canvas of San Giorgio Martire (St George the Martyr) by Ubaldo Gandolfi placed on the main altar, a Santa Margherita da Cortona by Giovanni Piancastelli of Castel Bolognese, now deposited at the Capuchin monks of Imola, and a fresco by Fausto Ferlini (1917-1992) of Castel Bolognese depicting San Francesco che dialoga con gli uccelli (St Francis talking with the birds). Again by Piancastelli, there is a precious collection of paintings and ink drawings of St Francis, today housed in the Civil Museum. The ample and luminous convent was rebuilt in the 1950’s and has a minor cloisters, portico adjacent to the church, with a hidden major cloisters. Around the complex opens up the garden, fencedoff by a high wall, part of which served as the town cemetery between 1802 and 1909.In the vicinity of the convent is the cemetery that is open to the public. Above the altar of the internal chapel was a Pieta, the work of the painter Giovanni Piancastelli, also now housed in the Civil Museum.The Capuchin monks left Castel Bolognese in 1988.