Chiesa di San Giovanni Evangelista

Chiesa di San Giovanni Evangelista stands in Italy’s Borgo San Salvario, where its recessed façade forms a small forecourt. Its high bell tower gives the building a strong landmark above the surrounding quarter.

Don Giovanni Bosco raised the building for a rapidly expanding working district and its poorer residents. Count Edoardo Arborio Mella designed the basilica in a Romanesque Lombard idiom, with a central nave and side aisles. At the entrance, a large statue of Pius IX by Francesco Gonfalonieri signals the spiritual ties with Rome. Wax pictures and painted decoration by Enrico Reffo’s school fill the central nave, presbytery and apse.

Beside the basilica, an institute for poor and abandoned boys later became Collegio San Giovannino. The adjoining complex now contains a university boarding house, an oratory and a welcome centre for immigrant communities. The structure also bears wartime damage from a heavy air raid, including harm to its roof, stained glass and load-bearing walls. The recessed façade and high tower frame social mission beside visible scars of war.