Chiesa del Sacro Cuore - Bagni di Lucca - Tuscany

The Anglican or English Church is a sacred building located in Via Whipple in Bagni di Lucca. Bagni di Lucca had become a permanent holiday resort for a large colony of Englishmen in the early 1800s. It was therefore decided to build a church in which the rituals of these illustrious inhabitants could be held. In 1839 Carlo Ludovico di Borbone, Duke of Lucca, authorized the construction of the Palace of the English Nation, under which name the building was preferred. The work was entrusted to Giuseppe Pardini, who realized a building modeled not on the common forms of classicism, but on the more exotic forms of an Anglicizing Gothic Revival style. Also worth a visit is the English Cemetery, with elegant graves mostly in neo-medieval style with an impeccably romantic touch.

Willem Vandenameele