page_title: Basilica di Sant'Andrea
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Basilica di Sant'Andrea / Description
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Martirio di Sant'Andrea. Dettaglio del rilievo di Benedetto Antelami (databile al 1220-1225) della lunetta del portale centrale della chiesa di Sant'Andrea a Vercelli. English: Martyrdom of Saint Andrew. Romanesque relief in the lunette of the main portal of the Church of Sant'Andrea in Vercelli (Italy), carved by Benedetto Antelami, 1220-1225.
context_page_description: The Basilica di Sant'Andrea is the church of a monastery in Vercelli, Piedmont, northern Italy, founded in 1219 by Cardinal Guala Bicchieri and completed in 1227. It represents an early example of Gothic architecture in Italy, inspired by Cistercian models and featuring Romanesque elements as well.
context_section_description: The basilica is built on the Latin cross plan, with a nave and two aisles of six bays each. The aisles are lower than the nave. The right aisle has buttresses from which flying buttresses (an element typical of Gothic architecture) connect it to the nave. The transept, of five bays, has the same width and height of the nave.  At the crossing is a tall octagonal lantern tower, surmounted by a belfry, also octagonal, which ends with a pyramidal cusp in brickwork. The apse has a rectangular plan, a typical feature of Cistercian Gothic edifices.
  The façade features stones of different types: green stone from Pralungo, calcarenite from Montferrat and serpentine from Oria. The stone is combined with the red brickwork and white cotto of the upper part of the two side bell towers. The wide gable of the central section, the two blind arcades and the big rose window in the middle are all elements in the tradition of Lombard-Emilian Romanesque architecture. The entrance is through three portals, also in Romanesque style, with four orders of small double columns. The lunette of the central portal has a relief depicting the "Martyrdom of St. Andrew", while that of the left portal shows "Cardinal Bicchieri offering the Church to St. Andrew, enthroned". Benedetto Antelami has been suggested as the author of the two sculptures, although it is more likely that they were executed by one or more of his pupils who had worked in the Baptistery of Parma.
  The interior of the basilica is fully Gothic in style, with ogival arcades supported by piers formed by a cylindrical element surrounded by eight  small columns. The ceiling has quadripartite vaults. The crossing tower is supported on four pendentives which are decorated with small columns over corbels; these reach other corbels in the lantern tower where are sculptures (from Antelami's school) representing symbols of the Four Evangelists. Beyond the crossing is the chancel, with the presbytery and the rectangular choir, which is illuminated by a large rose window and three mullioned windows, and has wooden seats from the early 16th century.
  Artworks include the funerary monument of abbot Thomas Gallus (early 14th century), with a fresco of Lombard school. In the first chapel in the left arm of the transept is a 15th-century painted crucifix.
caption: Lunette with the "Martyrdom of St. Andrew".
exif: {}