Church of San Giovanni Battista Decollato and Sacred Heart

Built between 1799 and 1802, at the behest of senator Piriteo IV Malvezzi and Andrea Michelini, a former Jesuit, this church was designed by Angelo Venturoli, the most successful Bolognese architect of his day and a native of the nearby municipality of Medicina.

The elegantly classic interior is characterised by breadth and brightness. Meticulously executed architectural-decorative elements include the reliefs of the altarpieces, the door and window frames, the delicate bas-reliefs of the metopes and the volumes of the four statues of the evangelists, all of which give the complex a uniform, solemn character.

The iconography of the altarpiece of the Sacred Eucharistic Heart of Jesus was the work of Gaetano Gandolfi; it was completed by his son Mauro.