I was visiting one of the major churches here in the historic city of Verona – the Church of San Fermo Maggiore. To my untrained eyes, the church looks like your typical very old Italian church. While construction of the church started in the twelfth century, it wasn’t until three centuries later that it was completed. The reason was because the church was enhanced and expanded over the centuries to its current form. This is not something new for very old churches like these, especially considering that Verona itself has been continuously inhabited and expanded all this time.

What is surprising to me was that it is actually two churches in one. There is a lower church and and upper church. I ended up visiting the lower church first. I can’t find information on why there is a lower and upper church. I could theorize as to why this could be the case but my main suspect would be the lack of space considering that Verona was already very busy even back then. As you might expect, the lower church is darker and even has a feel of a cellar. There are arches here which might remind you of a cellar. Actually that is the feel of the lower church if it weren’t for the altar at the end of the hall. I can’t remember if I have even been to a church like this before. Most of the time, I would see churches with chapels, but the lower church here is almost the size of the upper church.

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