San Giacomo Maggiore

Begun in 1267 by an order of Augustinian hermits and completed in 1344, Romanesque San Giacomo Maggiore is hugged by a graceful portico, arguably the most beautiful in Bologna, with Corinthian columns and a terracotta frieze. It was paid for by Bologna's godfather, Giovanni II Bentivoglio. In 1802, after the Augustinians were ejected by Napoleon, part of their monastery was given over to the Conservatorio Giovanni Battista Martini, where Rossini once presided as musical director. The adjacent Oratory of Santa Cecilia, also built by the Augustinians and covered with Renaissance frescoes, is now a concert hall.

San Giacomo was the parish church of the Bentivogli, who built their family chapel, the Cappella Bentivoglio in the 1460s, then filled it with some of Bologna's finest Renaissance art. Giovanni II hired Lorenzo Costa to paint the frescoes—the Triumph of Death, the Apocalypse, and a Madonna Enthroned—in the midst of Giovanni II and his Family, a fresco commissioned in thanksgiving for the big boss's escape from hired assassins. Even with the usual artistic flattery, Giovanni still comes off looking the cultured Renaissance thug.