Chiesa di San Giuseppe

Chiesa di San Giuseppe stands in the heart of Sanremo’s old quarter, historically known as the “scarpéta.” Its ochre-yellow façade carries a late nineteenth-century sculpture of Saint Joseph, gazing upward beneath the inscription “ite ad Joseph.”

Construction began in 1684 after the local council approved a new church, and work continued through the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Inside, a single spacious nave opens towards two curved side chapels and a presbytery, while frescoes fill the ceiling with rose windows, cherubs, angels, flowers and Sanremo’s coat of arms. The apse shows a blue sky, clouds and the dove of the Holy Spirit, and the Four Crowned Saints chapel received its painted decoration in 1868.

Several works bring together centuries of local craftsmanship: a 1624 bas-relief of Saint Germanus stands above the entrance, Antonio Brilla’s statues date from 1891, and a wooden crucifix probably comes from the sixteenth century. The main altar looks like a medieval sarcophagus but is actually a reused stone trough, later enriched with a 1944 mosaic showing the Rest during the Flight into Egypt. A clock still works on the church’s rear wall, adding a practical detail to this layered place of worship.