Basilica of Santissimo Salvatore

The first documentation relating to the church is by the historian Paul the Deacon, who refers to the foundation of a "church of the Savior" by Aripert I, king of the Lombards from 653 to 661, to build a place for his burial, as well as his sons Perctarit and Godepert and his nephews Cunipert, Liutpert (certainly not) and Aripert II, thus creating a Bavarian dynasty mausoleum, as well as to celebrate the definitive conversion of the Lombards to Catholicism.^[1]

The original nucleus of the church is dated to 657. The medieval church of Saint Salvatore was a church-mausoleum of illustrious Lombard kings. Aripert I with his son Perctarit, nephew Cunipert, Liutpert and Aripert II were buried there.^[2]

Adelaide of Italy, queen consort of Italy (from 947 to 950, as wife of Lothair II of Italy, and subsequently from 962 to 973, as wife of Otto I) decided to rebuild both the church and the monastery from the foundations. In 971, he entrusted the monastery to the Benedictine Order and the religious organization to Majolus of Cluny. With the diploma of September 30, 982, Emperor Otto II, donated to the monastery the villages and lands of Corteolona and Monticelli Pavese, and in Garlasco.^[3] In the 12th and 13th centuries, the monastery was the owner of land near Monticelli Pavese, over which the monastery held feudal and ban rights. Frederick Barbarossa is hosted in the palatium near the monastery, later crowned king in the basilica of San Michele Maggiore. In 1248, the Emperor Frederick II also stayed in the same palatium.^[4]

In 1448, the monastery was joined to the Benedictines of the Congregation of the Fathers of Santa Giustina of Padua. The Benedictines had both the church and the monastery rebuilt between 1453 and 1511. The church was rebuilt in late Gothic or Renaissance forms (perhaps under architect Giovanni Antonio Amadeo). The importance of the Pavia monastery was certainly maintained until the mid-sixteenth century, as evidenced by the privilege of confirmation of property and immunity issued by Charles V in 1540, followed by a similar one of Philip II in 1555. Important was 1585, the year in where an official ceremony was held for the deposition of the bones of the kings, already buried in the ancient church, in the new building.^[5]

Between 1777 and 1779, the Austrian government promoted the establishment, inside the monastery, of the Typography of the Royal Imperial Monastery of San Salvatore, entrusted to the monks but financed by the government and equipped with then modern printing equipment. In 1782, the monastery was suppressed together with other religious corporations in Pavia. In 1795, the monastery was granted to the municipality to house a college for students. Between 1859 and 1900, the church was used by the army as an infirmary and only in 1901 was it returned to the Catholic church.^[6] Since 2017, archaeological investigations have started inside the basilica and the former monastery. The excavations have not yet been completed, but have unearthed Lombard tombs that may contain the bones of kings.^[7]