Chiesa e Complesso Conventuale di San Francesco

located in the former military hospital, now not in good maintenance conditions, it is a valuable Gothic historic building dating back to the 13th century. Worth visiting. It is rarely open, it is owned by the municipality and from the outside you can see the bell tower of the church. From 1800 the church was transformed into another, from a barracks to the hospital situation until the end of the 1980s. The frescoed paintings that can still be seen are remarkable. Even spaces. It is unusual to see a church - at the top - (there are flights of stairs to go). Description from a municipal site - The interior is divided into three naves by slender bundle pillars surmounted by cubic capitals rounded at the base, sometimes enriched with stylized acanthus leaves and zoo-phytomorphic decorations. The central nave ends in a square apse, rebuilt at the end of the eighteenth century. The exposed brick characterizes the entire external appearance: only the essential lines of the ancient facade survive: the only decorative element still existing is the large window with terracotta decorations. More info and photos can be found in the picture gallery attached to the Alexandria library

The church of San Francesco, with the adjoining convent, was one of the most important Gothic buildings in the city of Alexandria. Unfortunately, like other medieval monuments, it underwent events in the nineteenth century that led to its transformation, so much so that today it is difficult for the visitor who passes in front of the building to recognize its original use. The work of the church had to begin at the end of the thirteenth century and were completed in the first decades of the fourteenth century. The interior is divided into three naves by slender beam pillars surmounted by cubic capitals rounded at the base, sometimes enriched with stylized acanthus leaves and zoo-phytomorphic decorations. The central nave ends in a square apse, rebuilt at the end of the eighteenth century. The exposed brick characterizes the entire external appearance: only the essential lines of the ancient facade survive: the only decorative element still existing is the large window with terracotta decorations. With the suppression of the monastic orders and regular congregations (1802) the complex became state property and therefore a cavalry barracks. Following this passage, the sacred building was divided into two floors (1816) to house both the warehouses and the troops' dormitories. In 1833, on the orders of Carlo Alberto, the entire structure became a barracks and a military hospital. Since 1919, following the notification by the then superintendent of the monuments of Piedmont, Cesare Bertea, the church was listed among the monuments of considerable historical interest and subject to protection. The complex was then acquired by the Municipality; the resulting restoration work has brought to light a polychrome decoration of the vaults, with ornamental motifs of great beauty, attributable to models of the early fourteenth century.