Savona’s cathedral stands in the old centre beside the Sistine Chapel, replacing the earlier cathedral destroyed when the Priamar fortress was built. Its restrained exterior hides a more interesting interior, with chapels, paintings, and the accumulated gravity of a city that once mattered much more than its modern reputation suggests.
Visit it together with the chapel rather than as a separate errand. The pairing explains Savona well: papal ambition, local devotion, Genoese disruption, and a city still quietly proud of its Della Rovere connections.