Overlooking a small square behind the Hotel Europa, near the Antico Castello sul Mare, the church and former convent complex of St Francis of Assisi dates back to 1519.
Despite its fairly modest size, it is the only church in the Rapallo area with four naves. Inside, divided by octagonal two-coloured pillars, the first altar of the right aisle contains the painting attributed to the painter Giovanni Battista Borzone depicting St. Anthony resurrecting a dead man and, in the chapel to the left of the nave, the wooden group of Christ crowned with thorns, by the sculptor Anton Maria Maragliano. In the church we also find the ‘Saint Francis on the bed of brambles’ by G.B. Casoni and the ‘Baptism of Jesus’ attributed to Luca Cambiaso.
The convent, adjacent to the church, went through a series of ups and downs and became the property of the Rapallo municipality in 1850. Over the centuries it was often used as a schoolhouse, a function it still holds today.
