The church of San Francesco
The church of San Francesco
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The church was built with dedication to the Virgin Mary between 1158 and 1183, when the Ezzelini family ruled in Bassano. According to an ancient tradition it was desired by Ezzelino II Balbo, a veteran of the Holy Land, to the satisfaction of a vote. Like many churches of the time it was built at the gates of the city, to welcome the pilgrims who came after long, tiring and dangerous journeys. Between 1287 and 1292 it was ceded to the Friars Minor Conventuals who dedicated it to San Francesco. .
The building is in Roman-Gothic style with a Latin cross; the façade has a gabled structure with an agile protiro with round arches dating back to 1306. In the lunette are frescoed the Madonna, Child, St. Anthony and St. Francis, by Luca Martinelli in 1613. On the right of the porch the Annunciation It is depicted with the already formed Child who flies from the Holy Spirit to the womb of Mary, created by Battista da Vicenza in the first decades of the fifteenth century.
The interior, with a single nave intersected by a transept, is covered with trusses and the walls still have vague traces of fifteenth-century frescoes. On the high altar a copy of the wooden Crucifix of Guariento, whose original is preserved in the adjacent Civic Museum. The institute is housed in the convent of San Francesco, and is one of the oldest in the Veneto region, it arose in 1828, following the legacy of the naturalist Giambattista Brocchi.
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