HISTORY
The small Romanesque church of Sant’Ilario sits on a street right in Piacenza’s historic center. Originally a hospital church, it was built right around the 12th century. It was initially associated with a pharmacy, and it was not elevated to a parish church until the 16th century, when it became the patron church of the city’s jewelers. It was subsequently the seat of the Congregation of the Holy Sacrament, which was begun in 1576 by the Bishop Paolo Burali, to provide assistance to pilgrims. But in 1810, it was suppressed and closed, first adapted to a warehouse, and then to the Communal Archive, which today is located in the Palazzo Farnese. Restorations began in 1930, particularly in the apsidal zone, which had been demolished in the 19th century, and on the rose window, which had been substituted in the 18th century with a rectangular window. It was recently restored by the Commune of Piacenza, and is now a community theater.

ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
While the single-aisled interior, substantially altered in the 16th century, is not particularly interesting, the gabled façade preserves much of its original structure, despite some 16th-century additions. The brick façade has a sculpted portal and a gallery of arches on colonnettes and stone capitals. The arch that crowns the portal, on the other hand, is the product of the 16th century, as well as the two lateral blind arches. The embrasure of the 12th-century portal is a true masterpiece of 12th-century Romanesque sculpture, displaying jambs with Corinthian capitals and an architrave sculpted in bas-relief.