Saint Vitale and Agricola

Small church compared to the average of the parishes of Bologna but very welcoming and reassuring you, even if incredibly dark internally. Note with particular attention the area hidden to the left of the entrance, which has a beautiful fresco, and the crypt which can be visited at the bottom near the altar, a small and very charming secondary chapel. Little surprise!

The church of Santi Vitale e Agricola in Arena is a Catholic church located in via San Vitale, in the historic center of Bologna. The church is the seat of the homonymous parish of the vicariate of Bologna-Center of the Archdiocese of Bologna. The church, with a single nave, has some important works. On the left side, on the threshold of the chapel of Santa Maria degli Angeli, there is a cross, placed on a column. This artifact, mistakenly believed to be one of the four crosses of San Petronio, was located inside a chapel dedicated to Saints Ermete, Aggeo and Caio in front of the church and demolished in 1798. The cross was then transferred to the Certosa and finally relocated to San Vitale and Agricultural. Above the main altar, enclosed by a gilded ancona with caryatids, there is the Martirio altarpiece of saints Vitale and Agricola by Luigi Busi, from 1876. The pipe organ is located on the choir in the counter-façade; it was built by Alessio Verati in 1856 and is enclosed within a richly gilded and carved wooden box dating back to the previous century; it was reformed by Giuseppe Rotelli in 1939 and is in a state of neglect. - the chapel of Santa Maria degli Angeli Built at the end of the 15th century by Gaspare Nadi, it was originally separated from the church of San Vitale and Agricola. The portal of the chapel on via San Vitale is believed to be the work of Andrea Marchesi known as Formigine. Inside the church, the entrance to the chapel is through two arches in the nave. In the right arch there is a Holy Family, in painted wax, by Angelo Piò. On the right wall there is the Flight into Egypt, oil painting, by Alessandro Tiarini. The altar, decorated with a wooden altarpiece, presents three different works: the front, in the center of which there is a copy of the Madonna del Divino Amore (the original, the work of Sano di Pietro, was stolen in 1972), on the left the Visit of the Virgin to Saint Elizabeth by Bartolomeo Ramenghi and on the right the Birth of Jesus attributed to Giacomo Francia.