The original church at the site of Santa Croce was founded in 1080, outside the walls of the village under the patronage of Pope Gregory VII. With the expansion of the town, the church was rebuilt in 1596 using designs of Pellegrino Tibaldi.
One of the holy relics of the church is putatively a foot print of Christ, though made of Carrara marble, and, according to the tradition, dating back to the period of the Crusades. It is located between two of the chapels on a pilaster strip. In the third chapel on the right there is a canvas depicting the Adoration of Magi (1533) by Bernardino Lanino. In the fourth chapel, the altarpiece depicting St Michael defeating Satan by Guglielmo Caccia, also called Il Moncalvo. In the counterfacade there are two tempera canvases (1545) depicting Our Lady of the Annunciation and Archangel Gabriel, attributed to the Vigevanese painter Bernardino Ferrari.
The fourth chapel on the left exhibits a Virgin and Child and Saints by the 16th-century Venetian school and a 15th-century fresco representing St Augustine.
References:The Château du Lude is one of the many great châteaux of the Loire Valley in France. Le Lude is the most northerly château of the Loire Valley and one of the last important historic castles in France, still inhabited by the same family for the last 260 years. The château is testimony to four centuries of French architecture, as a stronghold transformed into an elegant house during the Renaissance and the 18th century. The monument is located in the valley of Le Loir. Its gardens have evolved throughout the centuries.