Crema - Santa Maria della Croce

In 1159, after it had signed an alliance with Milan against the Ghibelline Cremona, Crema was besieged, stormed, and destroyed by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.

After the Peace of Constance in 1183, the city was allowed to be rebuilt. A period as a free Commune followed. The communal independence ended in 1335, when the city surrendered to Gian Galeazzo Visconti, whose family held the city until the end of the century. From 1449 onwards to the Republic of Venice.

As a Venetian inland province, Crema obtained numerous privileges. It maintained a substantial level of autonomy, which allowed for a program of new buildings.


Santa Maria della Croce was built in the Lombard Renaissance style outside the medieval walls, on the road to Bergamo where a Marian apparition may have affected Caterina degli Uberti, a woman from Cremona. Legend holds that in 1490, after she was fatally wounded by her husband in a wooded area close to the town, and wishing to die in the Grace of God, she implored the help of the Virgin Mary who, it is said, ferried her to a nearby farmhouse.

The sanctuary, in an unfinished state, was damaged in the 1514 siege of the city by the Duchy of Milan. In 1694 the sanctuary was committed to the care of the Discalced Carmelites who, in 1706, began the construction of the annexed convent. In 1710 they also added a bell tower.