The parish of St. Charles Borromeo, which dates back to 1791, is named after an important Catholic Reformation archbishop of Milan and is the namesake of the city of St. Charles, as well.

The current building dates from 1872, like many churches in the St. Louis region, and is an excellent much more pure example of the Romanesque Revival than many others around here.

Unlike many churches in St. Louis, which have the ornamentation of the Romanesque but the massing of the Gothic, this church actually has the correct massing of a Romanesque church, with its hulking and stocky proportions, particularly that of the French school of the style one might see in the south of France.

St. Charles Borromeo’s influence cannot be understated; he died of the plague while ministering to victims. His theology was hugely influential to the Seventeenth Century, and when St. Charles was founded, the King of Spain, which ruled the Louisiana Territory, was Charles IV.

Typical of the Romanesque, the windows are small in both the clerestory and in the aisles below. It is a very large church, showing the rapid rise of the population of St. Charles.

There is no noticeable transept but there is an apse out back.

We were intrigued by several extremely rootbound trees on our walk to the next site, which was further down the hill.

The Shrine of Saint Philippine Duchesne is constructed in the Italian Romanesque, as one would see more commonly in southern Italy. As can be seen from the tan brick half way down the side, it was clearly designed to be expanded with a large nave, but it has never happened, so the future transepts have remained the smaller, current nave.

St. Peter greets us in the tympanum over the front door.

We’ve seen where Saint Philippine worked in Florissant, at the Shrine of Saint Ferdinand. After working around the west, she died in St. Charles.

There was an earlier church and convent on the site.