Draft:San Francesco, Vigevano

The church of San Francesco is a religious building located in Vigevano, in province of Pavia and diocese of Vigevano.

Description and history
It was built outside the city walls in 1379, a year after the construction of the convent of the Friars Minor. It was smaller, oriented differently and occupied the space of the current transept. Enlarged in 1447, it underwent a radical transformation with the total reconstruction and the change of axis between 1465 and 1470. In 1475, the bell tower whose construction had begun in 1448 was completed. In 1836 the chapels were rebuilt. In 1847, to widen Via San Francesco, the chapel of the Immaculate Conception, built in 1494 based on a design by Donato Bramante, was demolished. Between 1847 and 1856 it underwent a "restoration" which transformed the interior into neo-Gothic style, with the construction of the vaults to replace the exposed trusses and the raising of the roof, consequent raising the floor by one meter which was brought to street level. Between 1891 and 1903, by the architect Moretti, the Lombard Gothic design of the façade was restored with the rise of a few meters, to align with the raised roof with the nineteenth-century interventions; furthermore, the small entrances on the sides of the façade portal built during the 18th century were eliminated, the two Gothic windows were lengthened and the frame of the large round window was completed, making it larger than the 15th century one. To complete the façade, the pinnacles were redone. In 1931 the sides were also restored, bringing the transept façade back to its ancient shape. On Via San Francesco, after the portal on the right side, there is a Baroque ossuary called the "church of the dead".