Ferrara Cathedral: Interior, Baroque central nave looking towards apse and altar

Dedicated to S Giorgio, the cathedral was built originally in the 7th century on the right bank of the river (the building survives, altered). After the acquisition of the relics of SS George and Maurelius in 1106, a new site was begun on the left bank in ca. 1134, consecrated in 1146. It is a five-aisled basilica. However, only the lower sections of the fa\u00E7ade and the outer south wall up to the level of the cornice are of this period. The screen fa\u00E7ade was completed in the 14th and 15th centuries, and the interior was remodelled in the 17th. The large, two-storey porch-portal on the west fa\u00E7ade is the work of the sculptor Nicholaus, whose name appears in a laudatory inscription dated 1135 on the tympanum. The inventive iconographic programme of both portals also includes references to the Crusades.