Brugnato Cathedral

Brugnato Cathedral (Italian: Concattedrale dei Santi Pietro, Lorenzo e Colombano) is a Roman Catholic cathedral located in the old centre of the city of Brugnato, in the Val di Vara in the province of La Spezia, Italy. The dedication is to Saint Peter, Saint Laurence and Saint Columbanus. Once the seat of the bishops of Brugnato, it is now a co-cathedral in the Diocese of La Spezia-Sarzana-Brugnato.

According to some sources, supported by finds in the foundations, the first religious building on the site was constructed in the 7th century over a palaeochristian necropolis, the church of a monastery dependent on Bobbio Abbey, founded by and dedicated to Saint Columbanus. It was rebuilt in the 11th-12th centuries, passed to a resident community of Benedictine monks, and became in 1133 the seat of the diocese of Brugnato (suffragan of the Archdiocese of Genoa) which had spiritual authority over the middle and upper Val di Vara.

With the arrival of the Ghibellines during the 14th century, and the consequent flight of the bishop, who took refuge in Pontremoli, the cathedral lost importance, although it remained as the church of the abbey of the Benedictine community. In 1820 the diocese was merged into those of La Spezia and Sarzana-Luni to form a single diocese with its seat in La Spezia, leaving the abbey church with the title of "co-cathedral".

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