A while ago, I wrote a post attempting to define the difference between a chiesa and a duomo. The post caught the eye of Italian student, Andrea Ferrario, that led to a wonderful dialogue on the challenges of the Italian language--and he agree, the interpretation of Italian churches is no exception! And, although tourist signs may point you to a "duomo," that may, in fact, not be what you are looking at. Read Andrea's wonderful and enlightening explanation (I might also point out that Andrea's English is far better than my Italian ever will be!):
The most common
monuments you see in Italy are, of course, churches. But Italian language has
many terms that means “church”, and so you can find that today you are going to
visit a Duomo, tomorrow
you'll see a Basilica and
the day after a Cattedrale.
What do all these words mean?
The proper term used
for a Christian temple is chiesa, that translates directly to "church." So you can safely use chiesa to address any church (as in “bella chiesa!,” that means “nice church”). Cattedrale (Italian for “cathedral”) is the name given to
the church in which the Bishop's chair (cattedra) is. Usually there is only one bishop in each
city, and so there is only one cattedrale.
The Basilica was a Roman public building, a sort of
tribunal. In the centuries after the Roman Empire, the term basilica started to mean “big church,” because the
first big churches were built in the style of the old Roman basilicas. Some
architectural elements that you can often find in a church (for example,
columns, apses, naves) were already present in pre-Christian Roman
buildings. Nowadays, most of
the main churches in Italy have the formal name of Basilica followed by the name of a saint; for example, Basilica
di San Pietro (in Rome), Basilica
di San Marco (in Venice).
The word Duomo comes from the Latin domus, that means “house.” After the fall of the
Roman Empire, Latin was spoken only by members of the clergy, and so domus started to be used to address the “house of
God.” Usually the most important church in each city is called Duomo followed by the name of the city; for example, Duomo
di Milano, Duomo di Monza. Often, the duomo of the city is also the cathedral church. As
for every other church, the duomo is dedicated to a particular saint and this can lead to confusion when
the alternate name (“Basilica di...”) is used. Note that it's slightly incorrect to call duomo a church if it's not actually called duomo; for example, there are no churches called duomo in Rome and asking a Roman “dov'è il duomo?” would attract confused looks.
So far, so good. The
problem is that Italian people actually use the words cattedrale or basilica to mean “big church”, even if the one intended
is not the cathedral church. If you are asking for directions to the main
church, it would be better to say “dov'è la cattedrale?” rather than “dov'è la chiesa?,” because with the latter you could be
directed to the local church and not to the one you want to see. Also, remember
that sometimes the common name of the church is different from its true name; for example, the famous San Giovanni in Laterano (St. John Lateran) is actually dedicated to
Christ Saviour, St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist.
