Situated along Via Roma in Piacenza, on the ancient way of Via Aemilia the church of San Savino is among the most beautiful northern Romanesque architecture prior to Lanfranco.
Built in 903 by Bishop Everardo and rebuilt around the year 1000 by the Benedictine Bishop Sigifredo, the building was consecrated in 1107 by Bishop Aldo.
Its Romanesque Façade was eliminated in the 18th century in favor of the late Baroque style still visible nowadays.
The restorations, at the beginning of the 20th century, brought to light two precious polychrome mosaics of the 12th century.
One is in the presbytery and depicts Time rotating eternally, held back in vain by men, profitable only in the exercise of the cardinal virtues.
The second mosaic is in the crypt, in black and white with few light blue, yellow and red tessere, shows the Months floating ion a sea inhabited by fish, mermaids and mermen.
In the Romanesque-Lombard interior: anthropomorphic capitals of exceptional fineness, human and monstrous figurations.
