Basilica of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro

Image: Wikimedia Commons

In Pavia, the old Lombard capital, the basilica of Saint Peter in the Golden Sky, named for the gilded ceiling of its apse, guards the tomb of Saint Augustine of Hippo. His remains, carried from Africa to Sardinia by bishops fleeing persecution, were redeemed around 720 under the Lombard king Liutprand, who lies buried here himself, and the present Romanesque church was consecrated in 1132. Above the high altar rises the Arca di Sant'Agostino of 1362, a marble mountain of statues and reliefs telling his story, from the garden in Milan where he heard 'take and read' to his baptism by Ambrose. In the crypt rests Boethius, who wrote the Consolation of Philosophy; Dante named this 'Cieldauro' in his Paradiso. On August 28 the whole Church keeps the feast of the restless heart that found its rest in God.