Santuario di Belmonte

 

To the beginning of 11th century, the Chronicle of Fruttuaria leads back to king Arduino the institution of the Marian Sanctuary, originally composed by eleven monks from Fruttuaria. The first reliable Information about a church of Holy Virgin Mary of Belmonte dates back only to 1197, while from a document of 1203 it is learned that Belmonte became the seat of a benedictine priory dependent on the abbey of Fruttuaria, which will hold control for a long time even when, in 1326, a monastic female community settled on the site at the behest of the bishop of Asti Guido of Valperga, linked to the  places by family membership. The disposition of the Council of Trento of residence of female monasteries in inhabited centers will result in 1602 the transfer of the Benedictine nuns in Cuorgnè and the arrival of Franciscan friars in Belmonte. In the following century starting with the years of the Counter-Reformation, the religious community promoted the Sanctuary as a center of marian devotion and an important recognized pilgrimage site, not only locally. The most ancient depiction of the Convent appears on an oil painting (first half of 1700), preserved in the museum of the sanctuary, where the church and the ancient convent are observed with the side arches still opened. The current church was built between 1873 and 1884 by the count engineer Carlo Reviglio of Venaria, with inside valuable frescoes by the painter Felice Barucco of Valperga (1830-1906). The facade was built instead in 1884 on a project by engineer count Carlo Ceppi, while the current pediment was frescoed by Giacomo Grosso (1860-1938) with a representation of the Holy Virgin Mary of Belmonte and, kneeling at this feet, Saint Francis and King Arduino.

 

Following the example of other Sacred Mounts from the early years of 1700s, the guardian father Michelangelo da Montiglio began to build a circular path of chapels inspired by the Via Dolorosa of the Passion of Christ. This path was born on a plateau near the Sanctuary, still today called “Campass”. The thirteenth and final chapel, entitled “the deposition of the cross", was built in 1825. Inside the chapels, to make the representation more realistic and suggestive, some terracotta statues of Castellamonte were placed with a remarkable artistic level, of which remain a few testimonials, and replaced towards the end of the 19th century by plaster casts.

 

A: Church and conventual compound

B: Friar’s burial grounds

C: Valperga’s burial grounds

D: War memorial

E: 1982 archaeological excavations

F: Lombard ruins' excavations

G: Saint Francis’ statue