Collegiata Santa Maria Assunta

The Collegiate Church of Santa Maria Assunta, in the heart of the old town, dates back to some time between the 6th and 7th centuries, built on the site of a former pagan temple (of which traces of the foundations still exist); it was then rebuilt in the 13th century and renovated internally in the middle of the 1600s. The building today is in a baroque form with mediaeval elements – two pieces in brick in the frieze on the facade for example – which allow one to imagine the existence of hanging arches in an earlier facade with a bell tower, and a section of exterior wall with deeply recessed arched openings. Inside, the three naves are divided by twin columns and there are also some important paintings from the Ligurian school of the 1600s and 1700s. In the right-hand chapel of the presbytery is the statue of the Tearful Blessed Virgin the town’s patron saint since 1630 when Novi was spared by a plague epidemic. There is a small museum attached to the church