St. Ann's Church
The Sistine Chapel of America
St. Ann’s parish was founded in 1890. In 1900, Woonsocket was 60 percent French-Canadian, mostly Quebecois farmers who came to work in the Woonsocket textile mills and factories. They resisted assimilation into America and kept their French identity by recreating the social, religious and commercial institutions of Quebec.
By 1913, the city was the sixth-largest population of French or French-Canadian foreign nationals in the United States. In 1914, the diocese assigned a French-speaking Belgian priest to St. Ann’s parish. The parishioners, unhappy that he wasn’t French-Canadian, gathered in a snowstorm to bar him from saying Mass. The diocese caved to their wishes and replaced him with a French-Canadian priest.
The cathedral-like church, designed by architect Walter F. Fontaine, first opened its doors in 1918. The parish did not have enough money to decorate the church. It had windows of plain glass and walls of gray stucco. Over time, St. Ann’s raised the funds for stained-glass windows. In 1930, the church installed forty windows created by the same company that made the windows for the Chartres Cathedral in France.
The church flourished during the 1930s. With 6,000 parishioners, seven Masses were said on Sunday. The Rev. Ernest Morin led the drive to raise $25,000 to add more color and decorate the church’s gray interior walls. Father Morin then hired Italian artist, Guido Nincheri. From 1941 to 1953, Nincheri painted glorious frescoes using scaffolding in the style of Michelangelo. He used members of the community as the models for the 475 faces that adorn the walls and ceilings that complete his masterpiece. It is considered Nincheri’s Magnum Opus.
The church, now St. Ann Arts and Cultural Center, is home to North America’s largest collection of fresco paintings and is often referred to as the “Sistine Chapel of America.”
