Certainly one of the most beautiful churches in town, also due to the fact that the small square laying before it is one of the best preserved corners of Medieval Genoa. This place has a charm of its own, both on quiet mornings and on summer evenings when open-air theatre events are being staged. Built by Martino D’Oria in 1125 as a family chapel, the church of Saint Matthew was completely refurbished and redecorated in the Gothic style in 1278. Half way through the 16th century Admiral Andrea Doria ‘modernised’ the interior according to the Baroque taste of the times. The only remaining Romanesque-Gothic part is the elegant 13th century façade with typical Genoese black and white stripes, a large central rose window and two double-lancet mullioned windows. A fascinating 14th-century cloister with small coupled columns and lancet arches stands to the left of the church. Opposite and next to the church the small Piazza San Matteo is closed off by 13th-century black and white striped buildings that belonged to prominent members of the D’Oria family, such as Branca D’Oria, mentioned in Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy as being sunk almost to very bottom of the pits of hell among the treacherous to kin, thereby inspiring the poet’s famous invective “Ah, Genoese! ye men at variance …” (English translation by Dorothy Sayers). The building on the corner of Piazza San Matteo, resembling Venetian-style architecture, was presented by the Senate of the Republic to Andrea Doria, ‘Father of the Country’, who now lies buried inside the church crypt together with his sword.