Look to your left for a pale stone church front arranged in two tiers, capped with sharp triangular pediments, and marked by a tall bell tower rising beside it.
This is Sainte-Marie, or in Corsican, Santa Maria, and for centuries it stood at the very centre of Bastia’s authority. From fifteen seventy until eighteen oh two, it served as the seat of the diocese of Mariana and Accia, before that diocese was attached to Ajaccio. Yet the church carried more than a bishop’s weight. People here considered it the most prestigious church in all Corsica, because this is where governors handed over power. The departing governor placed the keys and the sceptre of the Kingdom of Corsica on a silver tray and presented them to his successor. Inside the choir, the space around the main altar, two thrones faced one another: the bishop on one side, the governor on the other. Faith and government, eye to eye.
Its story begins with Bastia itself. In thirteen eighty, the Genoese governor Leonello Lomellini raised a fortress on this promontory to protect ships landing in the natural inlet below. That stronghold gave the town its name. As houses gathered around the walls, the upper town, Terra Nova, needed its own parish church. Builders began one here in fourteen eighty-nine and called it Santa Maria della Consolazione, later also Santa Maria l’Arrimbata, “the leaning” or “the braced” Saint Mary, because it rested against the rock.
That first church did not enjoy a peaceful life. French invasions and war scarred Bastia in the middle of the sixteenth century, and by fifteen sixty-three the building threatened to collapse. So in sixteen oh four, Bishop Geronimo del Pozzo launched the church you see now. Even then, it did not come easily. In sixteen eleven, the vaults over the three aisles collapsed. The project survived because a Bastia sea captain, Giovanni Pasquale Corso, died in Seville in sixteen twelve after making a fortune in the spice trade between America and Spain, and left a generous legacy to finish the work. By sixteen nineteen the main structure stood complete, and in sixteen twenty-five Bishop Giulio del Pozzo consecrated it.
The façade before you has changed more than once. The earliest front was baroque, a dramatic style full of movement and ornament, but later builders reshaped it in the eighteenth century, adding triangular pediments and statue niches. The bell tower rose in sixteen twenty, and the forecourt took shape in sixteen sixty-six.
If you go inside, the reward is lavish. The church has three long aisles, richly dressed in gold and marble. After a cholera epidemic in eighteen sixty-six spared the city, Bastia’s people paid to beautify the interior with white Carrara marble, grey-blue marble from Corte, red Levanto marble, and green Bevincu stone. You will also find gilded stucco by Francesco Marengo, painted vault decoration completed in eighteen thirty-five, seven bishops’ hats hanging high above the choir, and a silver Virgin shaped from donations given by Bastia’s own families.
Sainte-Marie feels less like a parish church than a stage where Bastia declared who held power, and why. If you would like to step inside, it generally opens from eight A-M to six P-M, and on Sundays until noon; when you are ready, continue on to Sainte-Croix for the final chapter nearby.
