Valle di Susa

Culture and Nature
routes in the Alps
Valle di Susa
A special thank to the Fondazione Magnetto
who gave his generous contribution to the printing of this guide
Texts
Comitato di coordinamento progetto
“Valle di Susa. Tesori di Arte e Cultura Alpina”
www.vallesusa-tesori.it
Editorial coordination
Eleonora Girodo e Andrea Zonato
Photographic credits
Comunità Montana Valle di Susa e Val Sangone
Centro Culturale Diocesano
ATL Turismo Torino e Provincia
Parco Naturale Orsiera Rocciavré
Parco Naturale del Gran Bosco di Salbertrand
Comune di Bardonecchia
Comune di Bussoleno
Comune di Chianocco
Comune di Chiusa San Michele
Comune di Condove
Comune di Moncenisio
Comune di San Giorio di Susa
Comune di Oulx
Comune di Venaus
“FERALP” Team
Gruppo fotografico L’Idea
Cristiana Aletto
Claudio Allais
Remo Caffaro
Luca Giai
Sergio Gioberto - Marilena Noro
Luca Giunti
Davide Lupino
Gianluca Popolla
Massimo Sebastiani
Marcello Striano
Laura Verdoia
All rights reserved
Second edition October 2010
Design, Layout and Print
Graffio s.n.c.
via Abegg 43 - Borgone Susa (TO)
www.studiograffio.it
Printed on December 2010
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means
Valle di susa
Treasures of Art and Alpine Culture
The Susa Valley has been an important European transit route and
across the centuries has been the witness of important historical moments and has had the role of custodian of an immense cultural and
artistic heritage, that with a rich natural beauty, has made the valley a
unique and extraordinary place.
The history of the man, who have populated the valley since Neolithic
times, are reflected in the great variety of historical, archeological and
artistic traces that embellish it. This history is inscribed into the same
landscape, where monuments created by nature, like the morainic basins of the Avigliana lakes, Mount Rocciamelone, Mount Chaberton,
and human creations, such as the abbey of St. Michele, the Novalesa
abbey, or the Exilles fortress and others, offer extraordinary points of
access to a host of cultural, naturalistic and sportive adventures in our
valley. And we might also add that is the backdrop to the towns in the
high valley that host the 2006 Turin Winter Olympic Games.
Over time, from the first century BC into the 1800s, the Romans followed by the French and then by the Savoys moved through this territory and shaped the valley floor and the high mountainsides with their
residential, religious and defensive works.
The opportunity that we offer today, with the support of a host of
local organizations and institutions, is to explore a series of itineraries
that will allow you to become acquainted with the variegated mosaic
of artistic and historical treasures in the valley, following the themes of
archaeology, sacred art, material culture and military fortifications. A
territory transformed in an open-air museum.
The archeological section highlights the extraordinary historical features of the Susa Valley, which has conserved significant traces of the
succession of civilizations and culture, from prehistory to the modern
times.
3
A wealth of sacred art and architecture graces a countryside where high
mountains tower over deep, tortuous and thickly forested ravines in
a landscape of profound inspirational power in the human relationship with the divine. The broad valley floor provided room for settlements, which prospered and developed thanks to the accessibility of
the mountain passes, and created the opportunity for fast connections
to the rest of Europe, creating the impetus for a production of sacred
art objects and religious architecture, which represent an important
contribution to European art and culture as a whole.
The wealth of abbeys, frescoes and Romanesque and Dauphiné churches all testify to the rich and varied cultural growth of the valley.
The Susa Valley, thanks to the many alpine passes, such as Moncenisio e Monginevro, have also been vital strategic importance, which
explains the widespread and quite visible presence of military installations in the area. A historical progression from Medieval times to the
Second World War may be observed in the military architecture, with
works that are outstanding both as architecture and as examples of
military strategy, and also have great aesthetic value for the beauty of
the surroundings in which the various fortresses are set.
The valley’s material culture recounts the tales of women and men
who have lived and who still live here, working and interacting with
the mountains, creating pockets of prosperity or eking out living in
the bottomlands or on the steep mountain slopes. Well-preserved alpine villages, with their characteristic spring-fed fountains, their village
oven and their houses made of gneiss, other stones and wood dot the
landscape.
The richness of human presence in this area is also reflected in its linguistic diversity, from the various local Italian dialects to the language
of Languedoc, revealing the strong transalpine influences. An extra flavor is added to this tour of the valley by the local culinary traditions
with their great variety of wines and gastronomic delicacies. This guide
to the open-air museum of Susa Valley is thus a means for becoming
acquainted with the rich heritage of this territory, and also a sense it
will strengthen a sense of identity and belonging among the inhabitants of the valley themselves.
It is an invitation to all of you to come and explore on foot, by bicycle
4
or even on snowshoes the many roads and trails of the valley, conjoining it’s immense historical and artistic heritage with its great naturalistic wealth. A true journey in the heart and soul of these alpine places.
“Valle di Susa. Tesori d’arte e cultura alpina” Committee
1
5
CONTENTS
travel itineraries
A. At the Borders of the Roman Empire...................................8
B. Narrows and Enclosures.....................................................18
C. The Slopes of Bussoleno.....................................................30
D. The Susa Basin..................................................................40
E. The Cenischia Valley..........................................................52
F. The Plain of Oulx...............................................................62
G. The Valleys of Cesana........................................................72
H. The Bardonecchia Basin....................................................82
Thematic Itineraries
1. Archaeology........................................................................92
2. Architecture......................................................................100
3. Fortified Architecture and Landscapes of Power................110
4. Figurative Arts..................................................................122
5. Material Culture...............................................................132
6. The Natural Parks ............................................................140
7. Food and Wine.................................................................146
appendix.....................................................................................155
1
8
A
1
At the Borders of the Roman Empire
Buttigliera Alta,
Preceptory of
St. Anthony of
Ranverso. The
façade.
This itinerary takes us through the flat valley bottom, dominated by
the Medieval city of Avigliana and its lakes, the centre of metallurgy
for prehistoric Piedmont, and from the nearby abbey of St. Antonio of
Ranverso, where the Antoniani fathers used to treat those afflicted with
shingles (known in Italy as “St. Anthony’s fire) to Turin, going as far as
Rivoli, passing through scattered Roman era settlements along the “Via
ad Galliam”, and finish our tour climbing into the Messa valley toward
the Colle del Lys.
Avigliana was part of the Duchy of Turin in the Langobard era and
later fell under the dominion of the Franks; in 1045 it passed into Savoy
hands and became their principal residence until 1418. The church of St.
Maria Maggiore, a dependency of the provostry of Oulx starting in the
twelfth century, stands at the foot of the castle whose ruins still dominate
the Old Village. St. Maria was significantly modified during the Restoration, but still contains evidence of its previous furnishings: the Baroque
paintings of the Annunciation and the Stories from the Old Testament,
the eighteenth century pulpit from the convent of St. Agostino, a 1926
painting by Giovanni Paolo Crida, Beato Umberto di Savoia. A selection
of plaster and bronze sculptures by Elsa Veglio Turino (Turin, 19211986) are currently displayed both inside and outside.
Avigliana, View of
the Great Lake.
9
Avigliana, Church
of St. Pietro.
The Old Village contains a number of characteristic buildings, such as
the Medieval Senore House, also known as Palazzo del Vescovo, restored
in 1910, and outside of the St. Maria gate you will find the two-storey
fortress-dwelling of Beato Umberto III with its loggia.
The church of St. Giovanni was built as a parish church in 1324; the
gothic stone portal is surmounted by a frescoed lunette depicting the
Enthroned Virgin Mary with Child done by Enrico Reffo in 1895, the
year the façade was restored. The vestibule has a fresco of the Madonna
and Child with Saints Christopher, John the Baptist and Anthony the Abbot
attributed to an anonymous follower of Giacomo Jaquerio going by the
pseudonym of Master of St. Vito a Piossasco, as well as a series of scenes
attributed to the Serra family of Pinerolo (Visitation, Holy Knight, Virgin
Mary with Saint Bernardino, Saint Mary Magdalene and Saint Catherine,
Martyrdom of Saint Agatha). Inside the church you will see the tablet of
Saint Orsola by Gerolamo Giovenone, the Madonna of Mercy and Saints
Crispino and Crispiniano by Defendente Ferrari, the triptych of Saint
Jerome, the polyptych of the Nativity (1511) ant the triptych of the
Madonna del Consorzio; the tablets displayed in the presbytery (Saints
Lucy and Nicholas, Saints Sebastian and Roch, Saint Anthony, Saint Christopher) also reflected Defendente’s style. The wooden pulpit dates back
to the sixteenth century. Among the Baroque epoch decorations please
note the painting depicting the Coronation of the Virgin Mary with the
Beatified Cherubino Testa and Saint Catherine of Alessandria of the Savigliano school.
Other characteristic buildings in the New Village, which grew up around
10
At the Borders of the Empire
A
Avigliana, The
sanctuary of
Our Lady of the
Lakes.
Guido Reni,
St. Maurice,
before 1624.
11
ST. Antonio of Ranverso
Buttigliera Alta lies near the moraine
that divides Susa Valley from the Sangone
Valley and is composed of two principal
wards, Capoluogo e Ferriera. Here you will
find the abbey of St. Antonio of Ranverso.
In the 1390s the Antoniani monks from
Vienne, in the Dauphiné, established a
hospital in Ranverso, which would soon
come under the protection of Umberto III
of Savoy. The church, which was built in
the early thirteenth century, underwent
significant redesign under the direction
of commendator Jean de
Montchenu II, who took office in 1470: to him we owe
the façade with its Gothic
pediments in terra cotta,
the same sort of decoration
chosen for the so-called Ospedaletto. After the suppression of the Hospitaller order,
which was incorporated into
the Maltese order in 1775,
the abbey passed into the
hands of the Mauritian order,
who are the current owners.
Alfredo d’Andrade and Cesare
Bertea directed the restoration work which was completed in 1920. The interior
of the church was frescoed,
Buttigliera Alta, Abbey of St. Antonio
di Ranverso. Defendente Ferrari,
Polyptych of the Nativity, 1531.
12
according to available documentation,
by Giacomo Jaquerio and collaborators
in 1406 (the painter left his signature in
the presbytery under the Enthroned Virgin
Mary); he also did the celebrated fresco of
the Ascent to Calvary Hill in the sacristy.
Outstanding among the frescoes done prior
to Jaquerio’s work is that in the chapel of
Maria Maddalena, c.1395. The main altar
I dominated by the 1531 polyptych by Defendente Ferrari, a votive offering from the
community of Moncalieri.
At the Borders of the Empire
A
Almese, Overall
view and Ricetto
of San Mauro.
modern-day Piazza Conte Rosso, include the Medieval Clock Tower,
which boasted Piedmont’s first public clock in 1330; Alfredo d’Andrade
built a copy of it in the Borgo Medievale of Turin, and also a copy of the
fourteenth century Porta Ferrata House at the top of Via Ferrata.
The church of St. Pietro stands surrounded by an old cemetery some
distance from the village of the same name, to which is connected by a
stairway. In 1205 the church passed from the jurisdiction of the provostry of Oulx to the Moncenisio hospice. The interior wall decorations
show a progression of styles from the eleventh to the fifteenth century.
The Apostles and Christ in a Mandorla in the apse vault were repainted
in 1348-1362 by the so-called Master of Tommaso d’Acaja, commissioned by the prelate of the same name. In the late fourteenth century
the painter Giacomo Pitterio of Alessandria did works in the apsidiole
on the right. In the right aisle there is a Pietà dating 1469 attributed to
Antoine de Lonhy, an artist from Toulouse who resided in Avigliana
in 1462. The chapel at the head of the left aisle with the Stories of Saint
Joseph and Mary Magdalene is considered to be the work of the Serra
family workshop in Pinerolo.
The sanctuary of the Madonna of the Lakes, standing above the Great
Lake, was built on the site of a Medieval shrine. The fresco of the Madonna and Child is believed to be the work of Bona of Savoia as a votive offering in thanks for the birth of her son Amadeus VII in 1360.
It became the seat of the Capuchin friars in 1622 and has housed the
Salesians since 1892. Among the decorations of the church, frescoed in
13
Villar Dora, Parish
church of SS. Giovanni,
Vincenzo e Anastasio.
Piedmontese painter,
Madonna and Child
with Saints Vincent,
John and Anastasius,
XVII century.
the middle eighteenth century by Bernardino Galliari, please note the
Defendentesque polyptych of the Annucniation donated to the sanctuary
by Carlo Emanuele I in 1615, Saint Maurice receiving the palm of Martyrdom by Guido Reni, a copy of Caravaggio’s Madonna of Loreto, Saint
Michael Archangel by Antonio Maria Viani of Cremona, Saint Francis
in prayer before the Crucifix attributed to Carlo Vacca from Saluzzo, and
the episode from the lives of Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Anthony of
Padua by Charles Dauphin.
The “Bicocca” Tower stands above Avigliana slightly behind the Hill
Tower. Its stone walls still exhibit parts of the crenellated parapet and
narrow embrasures evidencing its original function as a watchtower.
Rosta is located on the flatlands towards Rivoli, along the ancient “Via
ad Galliam”, as evidenced by the rural settlement from the Augustan era
discovered in the village of Verné.
The Roman origins of Almese have been documented by the discovery
of a villa from the Augustan era in the village of Grange di Rivera. The
old church of the Nativity of Virgin Mary, which stood on a rise at a
distance from the town, was replaced by the new parish church designed
by Giovanni Boschis and built in 1963-1966. The fourteenth century
walled village of San Mauro stands on an erratic block (a huge displace
rock) between Almese and Rivera.
Villar Dora, villanova founded in the thirteenth century when a bridge
14
The Dora Riparia river (126 km long), arises near
the Monginevro pass as the Piccola Dora.
After the confluence with the Ripa river in the
Argentera valley it takes the name of Dora Riparia.
In Oulx it unites with Dora of Bardonecchia and
in Susa it is augmented by the water of the Cenischia.
In Turin it flows into the Po.
was built across the Dora, was enclosed in a protective structure, the
remains of which are represented by the Hill Tower. The parish church
of St. Giovanni Vincenzo e Anastasio was old; the church was partially
rebuilt in 1675, sacked shortly thereafter by marshal Catinat’s troops,
and restored in 1830. The elegant painting on the main altar, depicting
the Madonna and Child with Saints Vincent, John and Anastasius, commissioned by the Provana family (to whom the locality was enfeoffed in
1333), was done in the seventeenth century. The castle adjacent to the
parish church was built in the thirteenth century and belonged to the
Antonielli family of Oulx. The Museum of Prehistory of the Dora Riparia (Do.R.P.) is located in Piazza St. Rocco. Somewhat removed from
the village centre, in the direction of Caprie, you will find the chapel of
St. Pancrazio: the frescoes in the apse date to the fifteenth or sixteenth
century and were commissioned by the Provana family (the chapel is
thought to stand on the site of the original nucleus of Villar Dora).
The village of Rubiana lies in the Messa river gorge surrounded by an
amphitheatre of mountains: in the late nineteenth century it became a
favorite vacation spot. The geography of the area favored contacts with
the Lanzo valleys across the Colle del Lys (located between Rubiana and
Villar Dora,
Provana Castle
(now Antonielli
d’Oulx).
15
At the Borders of the Empire
The Dora Riparia
a
The Colle del Lys Park
The Colle del Lys, a mountain pass between
Rubiana and Viù, is a beautifully scenic area with
panoramic views of the surrounding valleys and
the Turin plain.
There is a dense network of trails through stands
of birch, beech and mountains ash to let you enjoy
the natural beauty of the area: there is also a very
pleasant hike to the church of the Madonna della
Bassa.
Viù, the pass is part of a Natural Park). In 1944, Rubiana was the theatre
for a violent clashes between the Nazi-Fascists and the Partisans of the
17th Garibaldi Brigade (remembered in the Ecomuseum della Resistenza
on Colle del Lys). The current plan of the parish church of St. Egidio
may date back to 1726 and it was consecrated in 1769 and remodeled
during the nineteenth century. The Romanesque bell tower is all that remains of the previous church. On the ridge between Val della Torre and
Rubiana, in the ward of Mompellato, you will find the sanctuary of the
Madonna della Bassa, built in 1714 on the site of a pre-existing shrine:
the statue of Mary in the church was an offering from Lorenzo Nicol,
who attributed his miraculous cure to the Virgin.
The village of Caselette is laid out on the slopes of a moraine at the foot
of Mount Musiné and extends out onto the adjacent flatland: a great deal
of evidence has been found to affirm its ancient origins, archaeological
investigations in the area have unearthed evidence of human settlement
since the late Bronze Age (between the village of Cave and the upper
Caselette,
Cays Castle.
To the right:
Mount Musiné.
16
Mount Musiné
The commune of Caselette contains two European
Union Heritage Sites (S.I.C.). One, just north of the
town of Caselette on the road to the communes of
San Gilio and Val della Torre, comprises two lakes
which are home to an interesting variety of frogs,
toads and aquatic insects.
The other one, on the slopes of Mount Musiné, is
Piedmont’s most important xerothermic habitat
and nature preserve. It has a rich variety of invertebrates, many of which are only found here. The
unusual land forms of the area have also given
rise to a host of legends over the years regarding
mysterious civilizations and even the arrival of
UFOs.
17
At the Borders of the Empire
lake) and the remains of a Roman villa (I-IV century AD) between the
Malpensata and the Forchetto farms. The church of St. Giorgio, may
date to 1043, was remodeled during the century. The current plan of
the church was attributed to the sculptor Barnaba Panizza (1852). Of
particular interest are the works of the sculptor Stefano Maria Clemente (1719-1794). The oratory of St. Giovanni dates to the eleventh or
twelfth century and remain a beautiful Romanic apse. The sanctuary of
St. Abaco dates back to the seventeenth century: the current plan was
remodeled in 1855. Caselette was enfeoffed to families related to the
Savoy court, eventually falling into the hands of the Cays of Giletta,
who gave their name to the Medieval castle (which has been owned by
the Salesians since 1943). The castle of Camerletto, one of the holdings
of the Novalesa abbey, was built in the eleventh or twelfth century as a
fortified grange and reference point for pilgrims, today, unfortunately,
it’s no longer possible to discern its original form.
A
18
B
Narrows and Enclosures
The Abbey of
San Michele.
Chiusa San
Michele, Ruins
of the walls.
This itinerary takes us through some of the most emblematic parts of
the Susa Valley, from the remains of the Langobard valley forts immortalized by Alessandro Manzoni, to the celebrated abbey of St. Michele
standing atop Mount Pirchiriano, and the Certosa of Mount Benedetto high on the slopes of Mount Orsiera, and we will visit the remnants
of prehistoric settlements and traces of Roman era cults, such as the
cult of the forest god, Silvanus.
The town of Chiusa San Michele lies at the foot of Mount Pirchiriano, which is surmounted by the abbey of St. Michele, where there
is a walled enclosure: the name of “Chiusa” was dictated by the local geography. Here, in 773, Charlemagne and his Franks defeated
the Langobards of Desiderius, and moved into position to take the
entire Padana Plain. The local historiography states that the massive
wall running along the Pracchio creek is what remains of the defensive
enclosure. The large parish church of St. Pietro Apostolo was built in
the period from 1796 to 1825; in the middle nineteenth century Luigi
Morgari and Giorgio Boasso did the frescoes in the interior and there
are a number of noteworthy work inside. The elegant wooden choir in
the presbytery, attributed to Giuseppe Antonio Riva, came from the
convent of the Poor Clare Sisters in Pinerolo following the Napoleonic
19
Chiusa
San Michele,
Church of
St. Pietro.
suppression (another part of the choir is located in the church of St.
Martino in Rivoli).
The town of Sant’Ambrogio lies near Chiusa San Michele, in the direction of Turin. The bell tower of the old parish church of St. Giovanni Vincenzo, which can still be visited today, is believed to date to
the end of the eleventh century. The modern church was built in the
period from 1757 to 1760 following the project of Bernardo Vittone,
and has a concave brick façade. The interior was frescoed in 1900 by
20
Narrows and Enclosures
The Abbey of San Michele
della Chiusa
The abbey was founded in 983 – 987 by
Hugo de Montboissier, a nobleman hailing
from Auvergne; the chosen spot on Mount Pirchiriano was already the site of a hermitage
and was famous, together with Mount Caprasio, because of the charismatic presence of
St. John Vincent. The territories governed by
the abbey extended from the Dauphiné to
south – central France and all the way to the
Pyrenees, while Italy it acquired dependencies on the Padana Plain and Liguria. The
monks supported the supremacy of the
papacy them into conflict with Turin, but with
the intercession of Adelaide di Susa they
succeeded in gaining independence. The late
thirteenth century marked the beginning of
the economic and spiritual decline of the entity, until it was handed over to Amadeus VI
of Savoy in 1381 with the consequent institution of the commendam – the commendatory
abbots, if not directly elected from within the
Savoy family itself, were selected from houses who had proven their loyalty to the Savoyard dynasty – and was suspended in 1622.
The abbey would be suppressed in 1802 by
the French government, but in 1836, thanks
of the intercession of King Carlo Alberto, it
was entrusted to the Rosminian fathers who
still run it (and that was also the year that the
Savoy dead were transferred to the abbey). In
Top: Abbey of
San Michele,
Antonio Maria
Viani, Saint Michael
Archangel, 1622.
Low: Abbey of
San Michele,
Zodiac Door
(XII century).
B
the years 1889 – 1937, full-scale restoration
work was done under the direction of Alfredo
d’Anadrade. The most noteworthy works of
art include the Zodiac door, sculpted by the
magister Nicolò in 1220-1230 (the artist was
also working on the cathedrals of Piacenza
e Ferrara), the tomb of the abbot Guglielmo
de la Chambre dating to c. 1260, the tombs
along the Grand Stairway of the Dead (c.
1330), the fresco of the Assumption of Virgin
Mary by Secondo del Bosco commissioned in
1505 by the claustral prior Giovanni di Monfalcone, the tablets by Defendente Ferrari
commissioned by the commendatory abbot
Urbano di Miolans on office from
1503 to 1522 (the triptych of the
Immaculate Conception and the
Enthroned Virgin with Saints Lawrence and Michael Archangel) and
the altarpieces commissioned by
Antonio Maria Viani of Cremona by
the abbot Maurizio of Savoy sometime around 1622 (Saint Michael
Archangel and the Immaculate
Conception).
21
Luigi Morgari. The altarpiece
on the main altar depicting
the Madonna and Child with
Saint Ambrose and Saint John
Vincent is by Michele Antonio
Milocco, the painting of the
Madonna of the Rosary with
Dominican Saints is a 1782
work by Giovanni Domenico
Molinari, the elegant Via Crucis was painted in 1783 by the
court painter Vittorio Amedeo Rapous, while the series of
full figure Apostles decorating
the strip pilasters is the work
of Agostino Verani dating to
1774 – 1775. One of the oldest paintings in the church is the Rosary
altarpiece originally done by Bernardino Lanino, with later additions
The trail up Mount Pirchiriano
The less – travelled route up to the abbey of San Michele is the trail that leads
you through woods and over – exposed
22
rocks to the top of Mount Pirchiriano. It
is a long, but not particularly challenging
hike.
Top: Sant’Ambrogio,
Parish Church of
St. Giovanni Vincenzo.
Low: Abbey of
San Michele dominates
the summit of the
Mount Pirchiriano,
shrouded in clouds.
Condove,
Church of San
Rocco (formerly
Santa Maria del
Prato).
23
Narrows and Enclosures
being made in the seventeenth century.
Condove stands on the left bank of the Dora. The old parish church
of St. Rocco, formerly St. Maria del Prato, was built in the eleventh
and twelfth centuries. With the onset of the demographic growth of
the population, it was clear that a new church was necessary (1757),
however, it was not until 1956 - 1959 that work began and finally the
church opened its doors. There are a number of noteworthy work inside the church, which were transferred from the old church, and please
note particularly the pair of confessionals and the baptistery in rocaille
style, the seventeenth century altarpiece of Saint Anthony of Padua in
prayer before the Madonna with Child and Souls in Purgatory which
shows the clear influence of the works of Bartolomeo Caravoglia.
The castle of Condove, also known as the castle of the “Green Count”,
stands somewhat above the town in the direction of Caprie. Notables
B
among the mountainside are Mocchie,
with the parish church of St. Saturnino
(1778 – 1784) designed by Giacinto
Morari (pupil of Bernardo Vittone);
Laietto, with the chapel of St. Bernardo built near the modern cemetery
(with a famous 1436 cycle of frescoes);
and Frassinere, with the church of St.
Stefano rebuilt in 1749 and again in
1862 on a Romanesque plan (see the
bell tower).
The commune of Caprie gets its name
from the Mount Caprasio (today Civrari) at whose foot it is located, on the
left bank of the Dora. The area around
Caprie was once a leg of the “Via Galliam”. The commune is composed of a
number of wards, including Novaretto (interesting for the peat bogs where
pile dwelling dated to the Bronze and
Iron Ages have been found), Celle
(site of the Romanesque church of St. Maria Assunta, traditionally believed to have been founded by the hermit St. John Vincent, with an
eleventh century bell tower and frescoes in the crypt dated c. 1150),
Campambiardo and Peroldrado (stone axes, bronze and ceramic fragments and rocks incised as sundials have been found near these last
two wards). Caprie was included in 1029 among the holdings of St.
Giusto of Susa, in the eighteenth century it was enfeoffed to the Somis
family of Strambino. The church of St. Pancrazio Martire was built in
1726 thanks to the efforts of Cardinal Amedeo Delle Lanze, abbot of
Caprie,
in the ward of
Celle, Church
of Santa Maria
Assunta.
Legends of the Abbey of San Michele
Long ago, the hermit Giovanni Vincenzo retreated to
the summit of Mount Caprasio, where he meant to
build a chapel. During the night all his construction
materials disappeared, transported by a host of angels to Mount Pirchiriano. One night, Saint Michael
appeared to the hermit urging him to go to Mount
Pirchiriano to build his chapel. So he did, and the
chapel received its divine consecration amid flames
24
and incense. The external towers are associated
with the legend of the beautiful Alda, a young girl of
nobles birth who, chased by violent soldiers, threw
herself off a precipice to escape them, and was
saved by angels. But the foolish girl wanted to see
if they would save her again. To punish her for her
pride the angels let her fall to her death at the foot
of Mount Pirchiriano.
On the rocky knoll standing isolated to the southeast of town there are the remains of an old
castle, known as the Castle of the “Green Count”.
The castle it was never a residence of Amadeus VI
of Savoy. At most, he may have stayed there occasionally during his many trips up and down the
valley. Rather, it was the site of a castellan abbey
Vaie, Sanctuary
of San Pancrazio.
of San Giusto di Susa. Fallen into disuse since
the sixteenth century, was in ruins after an act of
war not identified by sources. The ruins contains
the recently restored chapel of the Madonna delle
Grazie (1700). Recently, the site has been object
of archaeological investigations and there are
plans to set up a guided tour.
the Susa chapter from the 1743 to 1749 (see especially the noteworthy
stained glass windows and the eighteenth century main altar).
Vaie stands on the right bank of the Dora. The area has been in-habited since Neolithic times, as evidenced by the Rumian Shelter (in Baità
near a gneiss quarry opened during the Reinnasence).
The parish church of St. Margherita was built in Neoclassical style
around 1840 and consecrated in 1856. The sanctuary of St. Pancrazio,
formerly a dependency of St. Margherita, perhaps dating back to the
eleventh century, was restored during the century.
Sant’Antonino di Susa stands on the right bank of the Dora. The
25
Narrows and Enclosures
The Castle of the “Green Count”
B
Sant’Antonino,
Parish church of
St. Antonino Martire.
historic centre of the town lay along the Via Francigena, which favored the commercial development of the area. The parish church of
St. Antonino Martire is documented back to the eleventh century and
is recognized by historians as the oldest parish church in Susa Valley.
During recent restoration work, an interesting decorative apparatus
dating to the thirteenth century was discovered in one of the apses (see
especially the thirteenth century Crucifixion). At the end of the seventeenth century the church was radically transformed. Notable among
the decorations are the altarpiece on the main altar depicting Our Lady
of Sorrows showing marked similarities with the work of Sebastiano
Taricco from Cherasco.
The commune of Borgone di Susa, today an industrial town, lies on
the left bank of the Dora. The ancient origins of the settlement are
evidenced by the so-called Maometto, a rock sculpture in the second
26
Sant’Antonino,
Parish church of
St. Antonino Martire,
Franco-Piedmontese
painter, Crucifixion
and San Sebastiano
(1300-1350).
Narrows and Enclosures
B
Borgone Susa,
Castlàs Tower.
Villar Focchiardo,
Crucifix of the Certosa
of Banda (XIII-XIV),
now the Diocesan
Museum of Sacred Art
of Susa.
or third century depicting the forest god, Silvanus. The tower known
as “Castlas” is all that remains of the fortress built in the fourteenth and
fifteenth century, while the seventeenth century Villa Montabone is
now the town hall. The current parish church of Borgone, dedicated to
St. Nicholas of Bari, is the result of a number of transformations over
the centuries. It was first cited in documents in 1382, when it was a
dependency of San Giusto di Susa. It was restored in 1769 (about the
time that additions were made to the tablet of
Saint Francis), and the bell tower was rebuilt
in 1845 – 1848.
The San Valeriano oratory (eleventh – twelfth
centuries) containing remnants of the fresco
Christ Almighty is found in the ward of San
Valeriano.
The town of Villar Focchiardo comprises numerous wards on the right side of the valley; it
was a feud of the viscounts of Baratonia, who
built the eleventh century fortress-dwelling
called “the Palais”. In the flat area along the
State Road no. 24 (SS24) in Giaconera you
will see the ruins of the castle of the Carroccio
family (built in the fifteenth century and modernized in the eighteenth) and the Roland cascina (farmhouse). The parish church of Maria
27
Villar Focchiardo,
Certosa of
Montebenedetto.
Villar Focchiardo,
Certosa of Banda.
Piedmontese wood
carver, wooden choir,
fifteenth century.
Assunta was built between 1717 and 1735 on land donated by the abbot Ignazio Carroccio provost of the cathedral of Turin (see his funeral
monument from 1668). Climbing the slopes above the town to the
west you will come to the thirteenth century Certosa di Banda (670
meters) which contains an interesting Gothic wooden choir.
Banda was a dependency of the Certosa di Montebenedetto (1180
metres, now part of the Orsiera Rocciavré Natural Park), where monks
arrived from the Losa di Gravere in 1200. It was abandoned at the end
of the fifteenth century and moved down to Banda, partially because of
the disastrous flooding of the Fontane creek (1473), but also because it
was not felt to be secure in light of the frequent raids by armed Protestant bands from the adjacent Valle del Chisone (the religious wars
would eventually cause the abandonment of Banda as well in 1595,
with the monks moving to Avigliana).
28
Focchiardo Villar,
Parish Church
of Santa Maria
Vergine Assunta.
Narrows and Enclosures
B
29
30
C
The Slopes of Bussoleno
San Giorio of
Susa. Chapel of
San Lorenzo,
overview of the
frescoes by the
Master of San
Giorio (1330 AC).
This itinerary will take us through towns and villages located between
San Didero and Mattie along the Sate Road no. 25 (SS25). The many
fortress – dwellings (found in San Didero and Chianocco and other
places) and castles (Bruzolo, San Giorio di Susa) characterize this
area along with the churches rebuilt in the Baroque era by architects
involved in developing the valley’s fortifications (Bussoleno and Mattie).
The commune of San Didero, once a feudal estate of the family
Visconti di Baratonia and then of families loyal to the Savoy, such
as the Roero, Allemandi and Bertrandi families, is located on the left
bank of the Dora, nestled up against the mountain. The structure
comprises a square tower made of non – stuccoed stonework, formerly the keep of a castle which has now disappeared, and a number
of defensive structures along the perimeter wall.
The church of San Didero, built on a rise above the town centre,
become a parish church only in 1827 but was listed from the thirteenth century. Radically transformed and remodeled over the years
(especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) some traces of
its Romanesque origins still remain, mainly in the bell tower and the
external side walls.
Following SS25 along the left bank of the Dora you will arrive in the
commune of Bruzolo. The earliest references to the town date back
to the testament of Abbone in 739, where he indicates it as one of
the holdings donated to the abbey of Novalesa; in 1029 is includes
among the lands of the abbey of San Giusto. A castle was built on
the fief around the thirteenth century, after it was officially enfeoffed
to the Bertrandi family by Tommaso I of Savoy in 1225. In 1408
the fief passed into the hands of Rivoire family from Savoy, and in
1470 it became a commune with a charter and autonomous franchise
rights. For many years it continued to be the residence of nobles
families loyal to the Savoy, including the Grosso di Carignano family, in whose residence the Treaties of Bruzolo were signed in 1610
by the Duke of Savoy and the King of France. In 1797 the castle and
its lands were sold to the Olivero – Marconcini family, who still own
the complex.
The castle was built in the early thirteenth century as a sort of mas31
Bruzolo,
The Castle.
sive fortress – dwelling used for surveillance and defense, such as in
Borgone, Chianocco and San Didero: it was later enlarged to accommodate feudatory families, and in the sixteenth century, under the
Grosso di Carignano family, it became a noble residence often visited by the Savoy court on hunting outings.
The castle grounds are accessed through a
Baroque – era door known as the Porta Nobile leading into the inner garden, from here
you go up a marble staircase to enter the caste
itself.
The parish church of St. Giovanni Evangelista
stands above the town centre in a panoramic
spot. Built (1725) upon the foundations of a
Romanesque church that was demolished in
the early eighteenth century, leaving inly its
bell tower, the church was completed with its
internal decorations in 1856 (the painter of
the Savoy court, Michele Antonio Milocco,
was involved in the remodeling work).
Our tour now continues on to San Giorio,
built on the right bank of the Dora. Cited as
32
Bruzolo,
The Castle.
Detail of the
entrance portal.
The Slopes of Bussoleno
C
San Giorio Susa,
Overall view.
“Sancto Georgio” in the 1029 manuscript of the lands of the abbey of
San Giusto, San Giorio fell under the jurisdictions of Santa Maria of
Susa, for fell (fourteenth century) under San Giusto again.
San Giorio was an important fief of the Counts of Montmelian, who
descended from the Maurienne sometime around the thirteenth century to enfeoff also Bruzolo, Chianocco and Villar Focchiardo.
The earliest information we have about the castle dates back to the
eleventh century while the Bertrandi enlarged it in the early fourteenth century by adding a square donjon in the upper castle, and
by building the lower castle. Severely damaged by the French troops
under marshal Catinat in 1691, the lower castle is still a ruin, while
the upper castle has been partially rebuilt in recent restoration work.
Much of the twelfth century fortress – dwelling, an integral part of
the parish complex, is still intact with its 2 – light mullioned windows and a crown of Ghibbeline merlots. The parish church of San
Giorio, built in the thirteenth century, was built next in 1836; some
traces of its origins still remain only in the small bell tower. Next to
the parish church was built the chapel dedicated to St. Lawrence, socalled Count’s chapel, erected in 1328 by Lorenzetto Bertrandi. In
1978 restoration work inside the chapel uncovered a cycle of frescoes
attributed to the Master of San Giorio, and believed to date to c.
33
1330. The iconography of the complex is dedicated to the Stories of San Giorio Susa,
the life of Christ; among which please note the Contrast between the Chapel of San
Lorenzo.
three living and the three dead.
Master of San
The next commune we come to is Chianocco, comprising a number Giorio, Cavalcade
the three live and
of wards situated along the right bank of the Dora. It was one of the ofthree
dead (detail),
assets that Olderico Manfredi donated to the abbey of San Giusto 1330 ca.
in 1029, and the lay feudatories who took up residence there were
families loyal to the Savoy court, among them Bertrandi.
Near the end of the thirteenth century, the first fortress – dwelling
was built towards the valley bottom with the apparent purpose of
controlling the main transit routes.
The second fortress – dwelling
The Chianocco
would be built in a higher location
gorge climb
(Campoasciutto).
The Chianocco parish church, dediThe Chianocco gorge is found in the
Chianocco Gorge Nature Reserve (instituted
cated to St. Peter the Apostle, was
to protect the Mediterranean holm oak),
erected from 1699 to 1708, folapproximately 300 meters long with sections
lowing its reconstruction after the
traversing vertical walls with the aid of a steel
serious damages suffered when the
cable and rungs.
Prebéc river flooded in 1694.
There is also the option of visiting a
The cemetery chapel dedicated to St.
prehistoric cave dwelling.
Hippolytus, dating to the eleventh
34
Chianocco, Chapel
of St. Ippolito.
Piedmontese
painter (?),
St. Bartholomew
(detail), XV century.
35
The Slopes of Bussoleno
Bussoleno,
The Aschieri House
(XIV sec.).
century is noteworthy and inside you
will find a precious series of frescoes
arranged in two orders. The upper
one portrays Christ crucified with
Virgin Mary and Saint John Evangelist, Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, while in the lower one you can
see the Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian,
Saint Bartholomew and Saint Anthony the Abbot (the naturalism typical of the northern Europe culture
which is clearly discernible in these
paintings would appear to exclude
the influence of Giacomo Jaquerio).
Continuing on towards the city of
Susa, we come to the town of Bussoleno, first documented in 1011,
established on both sides of the
Dora: on the right bank we have the
older, Medieval section which was enclosed in defensive walls, of
which some traces remains, such as the notable architectural works
of Aschieri house and the Gamaleri – Amprimo house. Isolated on
a plateau above the right bank of the Dora in the Bussoleno ward of
Baroni we find the Borello castle, whose nucleus is believed to date
back to the twelfth century. The castle is now a private property.
The parish church of Santa Maria Assunta of Bussoleno, under the
C
36
The Slopes of Bussoleno
Mattie,
Parish of SS. Cornelio
and Cipriano. Altar
(XVII century).
C
Bussoleno,
Parish church
of Santa Maria
Assunta.
Piedmont
painter,
Annunciation,
XVII century.
jurisdiction of the provostry of Oulx, at least from 1158 and up to
1748, became part of the Diocese of Susa in 1772. All that remains
of the Medieval building is the impressive bell tower, engulfed by the
new church, which was completely renovated in 1725 – 1739 based
on designs by the Lorrainese architect F.L. Willencourt (who also
worked on the Brunetta fortifications), with the sponsorship of the
local people and Count Ignazio Carroccio. The side chapels contain
a number of noteworthy works, including the altarpiece on the altar
of the Penitent Souls depicting the Madonna with Child with Saints
Anthony of Padua and Bernardine of Siena attributed to Bartolomeo
Caravoglia, and the altarpiece of the Annunciation, an old copy of
Orazio Gentileschi’s 1623 painting.
The religious architectural works around Bussoleno include the modern – day parish church of St. Giovanni Battista in Foresto, built in
1721 and consecrated in 1749 by Cardinal Delle Lanze.
The old church, existing in 1065 as a dependency of the provostry of
San Giusto di Susa, and damaged a number of times by the repeated
flooding of the Rocciamelone river, was definitively abandoned in
the eighteenth century; all that remains today is the bell tower (thirteenth century), into the cemetery.
There are a number of campestral chapels within the parish church of
Foresto, including the Madonna delle Grazie with an important cycle of fifteenth century frescoes dedicated to the Stories of Saint Anne
37
Bussoleno, Parish
church of Santa Maria
Assunta. Bartholomew
Caravoglia (attributed
to), Madonna and Child
with Saint Anthony of
Padua and Bernardino
of Siena, before 1673.
and Saint Joachim, attributed to Antoine de Lonhy’s circle.
Our tour ends in Mattie, composed of a number of wards along the
right bank of the Dora: it was one of the fiefs donated to the abbey of
San Giusto in 1029 and later to the provostry of Oulx. The tower, in
the ward of Menolzio, was cited in 1291 as belonging to the Farguili
family: it was transformed and enlarged in the period up to the middle – seventeenth century when it was abandoned. It is now a ruin.
The parish church of SS. Cornelio and Cipriano stands isolated on
a plateau with a panoramic view. The old Medieval church, docu38
The Slopes of Bussoleno
The legend of Lake Chardonnet
The small lake Chardonnet has very dark and
cold waters. Legend has it that a young soldier
from Mattie, who had fallen in love with a young
shepherdess, was thrown into the lake by his
rival.
Mattie,
Menolzio tower.
The freezing waters and the weight of his
weapons were too much for him and he
was drowned. In winter storms and summer
thundershowers it is said that you can still hear
his desperate cries for help.
mented as far back as 1065 and already dedicated to the two saints,
has almost completely disappeared except for the Romanesque bell
tower and two capitals decorated with phytomorphic motifs set into
the walls near the entrance. Completely remodeled as we now see
it by the Exilles architect Santus Rusca in 1758 – 1759, the church
contains the noteworthy retable on the Santa Croce altar, gilded in
1700 and stylistically similar to works from the work-shop of the
Faure family.
39
C
40
D
The Susa Basin
Susa, Porta
Savoia, the
Cathedral and the
bell tower.
This itinerary explores an area dominated by Susa, with its over two
thousand years of history, occupying a strategic position for dominating
the surrounding territory. It is the principal city in the valley and node
for routes across the Alps or to the adjacent Chisone Valley. The communes surrounding the Susa basin are thus very significant in terms of
political and roadway strategies: Meana, to the south towards Colle delle
Finestre, along the route of the “heretical” Protestant influxes from the
neighbouring Chisone Valley; Giaglione, to the west on the way to the
Mount Cenis pass; Gravere, on the borderline between the Savoyard and
the Dauphiné realms; and further up the valley, the prosperous and francophile Chiomonte on the road to the Montgenèvre pass. The figurative
arts in the area reflected the political divide cutting through Susa, with
painters working for the Dukes of Savoy, and master transalpine wood –
carvers from the Maurienne Valley and Embrun.
Susa, known as “Segusio” in Roman times, was established in a strategic
position at the convergence of the two roads that led to Montgènevre
(Via ad Galliam) and to Mount Cenis. The Arch of Augustus, located up
the Via degli Archi, celebrates the alliance between Cottius and Augustus
sealed sometime in the 13 BC. In the second and third century AD, the
massive Porta Civitas (modern - day Porta Savoia) near the cathedral of
San Giusto, became the newest gate controlling access to the city. Enfeoffed by the Counts of Turin after the expulsion of the Saracens led
Susa, Cathedral
of San Giusto.
Peter of Lyons,
altar (detail),
early thirteenth
century.
41
by Arduino Glabrione, Susa passed into Savoy hands with the marriage
of the Marchioness Adelaide of Turin, daughter of Olderico Manfredi,
to Oddone of the Maurienne (twelfth century). The castle was built on
a spot that had already chosen as a centre of command in pre – Roman times: with the union of the Counts of Turin and the Savoy, Susa
became an appanage of the latter; it would become the governor’s seat
and later the seat of Napoleonic administration, it now houses the City
Museum, currently undergoing renovation (with its collection of archeological relics from the prehistoric age to the Middle Ages).
The Benedictine abbey dedicated to the martyr St. Justus was consecrated in 1027, while the foundation of the Benedictine monastery dates
9 July 1029. The Gothic restyling was carried out in c. 1321 (see the
capitals in the presbytery and the noteworthy choir stalls). In 1583 the
Laterans took over from the Benedictines at a time when the city was the
object of particular attention by the Dukes of Savoy, who were intent to
fortifying the area. In 1749, with the suppression of Santa Maria Maggiore, then in Savoyard territory, and which had been an enclave of the
provostry of Oulx since 1065, San Giusto was erected as a collegiate
church, and in 1772 became a cathedral.
SUSA in the Roman Age
The importance of Susa in the Roman period is
sealed by the famous monuments come down to
us, first of the famous Augustus Arc, made with
marble from the quarries of Foresto in 9-8 BC, to
ratify the covenant between Rome and the local
king Cozio.
Near the arc, on the height now dominated by the
castle, you can admire the ruins and the aqueduct
of the ancient castrum (III-IV centuries), whose
arches above the crucible rock probably used in
ancient Celtic rituals.
Further downstream, the scenery of Piazza Savoia
is dominated from the towers of the Porta del
Paradiso (III century), the ancient entrance to the
walled town, and by the traces of the ancient
temple city, emerged during recent archaeological
investigations. To north-western outskirts of the
city are instead traces of late antique walls arena,
dating to the second century AD, is still used for
events and shows.
42
Susa,
Arch of Augustus,
9-8 BC.
43
The Susa Basin
Susa,
Confraternity
of San Carlo
Borromeo. Orsola
Maddalena
Caccia, San Carlo
Borromeo in
adoration of the
Name of Jesus,
before 1649.
Significant
elements
characterizing the exterior of the building
include the Romanesque bell tower with
its fifteenth century
spire (the cell at the
base of the bell tower
contains an eleventh
century fresco of a drapery decorated with
historical scenes), the
recently
discovered
frieze from the Roman
era on the south façade,
the lunette depicting
the Crucifixion (twelfth
century) and the fresco
of Christ’s arrival in Jerusalem attributed to
the Serra family, which
is visible when entering the church from
the baptistery (end fifteenth century). In the
years 1863 to 1865,
Edoardo Arborio Mella
directed restoration of
the interior. Outstanding elements inside the church include the thirteenth century marble altar by the stone – cutter Peter of Lyons and the
Nativity tablet attributed to Defendente Ferrari from Chivasso, both located in the capitulary room; the triptych of the Madonna and Child with
Saints Hugo of Lincoln and Hugo of Grenoble, a 1491 work by Jacopino
de Mottis transferred from the Certosa of Branda; the sixteenth century
wooden sculpture of Mary Magdalene, traditionally believed to be a portrait of Adelaide of Susa; the altarpiece of the Holy Family by Guglielmo
Caccia called “il Moncalvo”; and the statues of Saints Peter and Paul on
the Crucifix altar attributed to the sculptor Etienne Fodéré.
The foundation of the convent of San Francesco dates back to 12131214. The floor plan with its nave flanked by aisles on either side and
richly sculpted capitals date to the primitive edification, while the portal
D
THE Diocesan Museum of Sacred Art of Susa
The chuch of the Madonna del Ponte (mentioned
since 1250), located across the Dora, houses the
Museo Diocesano di Arte Sacra, inaugurated in
2000: divided into three sections (the Tesoro della
Cattedrale, Tesoro della Chiesa del Ponte and works
come from churches and chapels of the Diocese),
include a number of precious work dated between
fourth and twentieth century. The collections include the bronze doorknockers of San Giusto (c.
1130), the Rocciamelone Triptych (1358), the cross
of Johannes Bos of Zuinich (1360-70), the Defendente Ferrari’s tablet of the Immacolata (1510-20),
the wooden sculpture of the Madonna del Ponte
(twelfth century), the Madonna with the Child from
Villa Focchiardo (early thirteenth century), the altarpiece of the Madonna della Losa (c. 1420), a section
of wooden works produced by the wooden workshops of the High Susa Valley between the end of
the fifteenth century and the early sixteenth century,
the collections of the textiles. The Museo Diocesano
is the head office of the Sistema Museale della Valle
di Susa, including the museums of Arte Religiosa
Alpina di Melezet, Giaglione and Novalesa and the
chapel of San Lorenzo in San Giorio di Susa.
with its Gothic pediment dates to the fourteenth century. The frescoed
busts of the Franciscan saints in the sacristy date to the thirteenth century.
Other items worthy of note in the religious architecture include the Romanesque bell tower of the remains of Santa Maria Maggiore, which was
transformed into a private residence, the Romanesque church of San Saturnino which was a filial church of Santa Maria Maggiore and suffered
its same fate, the Confraternity of San Carlo Borromeo, in Via Palazzo di
Città, which dates back to 1626 and houses a precious altarpiece by Or44
To the left:
Susa, Diocesan Museum.
Franco-Catalan sculptor,
Madonna del Ponte, XII
century.
Susa, Diocesan Museum.
Flemish Goldsmith,
Rocciamelone triptych,
1358.
To the right: Giaglione,
Overall view.
The Susa Basin
D
45
Susa, Diocesan Museum. Wooden carver
from southern Germany, Altarpiece of
the Madonna della Losa, 1420 ca.
sola Maddalena Caccia, and the church
of the Madonna del
Ponte, houses the
Museo Diocesano di
Arte Sacra.
Outstanding
elements among the
numerous vestiges
of historical civil architecture include
the Borgo dei Nobili
(along Via Fratelli
Vallero), where the
patrician dwelling
of members of the
Savoy family were
built in the Middle
Ages, the Bartolomei
house (birthplace of
the celebrated jurist
Enrico da Susa, ostiense
cardinal) with the nearby
civic tower on a Romanic
tower, and the Baroque façade of Palazzo Benit in Via Rolando.
Giaglione stands on the slopes above Susa separating the Dora valley
from Cenischia valley. In the past the
“Via ad Galliam”, passed through
The Dora di Giaglione
Giaglione, providing it with a direct
Gorge Trail
connection to the Montgenèvre pass;
An interesting and not particularly challenging
a second road, somewhat rougher,
hike, the trail takes you among the splendid rock
connected Giaglione to the transalformations carved by the impetuous waters of
pine Arc valley by way of the Clapier
the Dora. The trail alternates between assisted
and the Savine passes. In the successtretches over exposed rock, thrilling suspended
sion of enfeoffed families in Giaglione,
bridges and a nice walk through stands of pubesthe most prestigious were the Aschieri,
cent oak and wild chestnuts.
who had dominion over the localities
46
Giaglione,
The headgear
of Spadonari.
The Bran is one of the central elements of
the festival of the patron saint of Giaglione,
Saint Vincent. Along with the Swards Dance
it represents one of the most deeply rooted
popular religious traditions in the Piedmont
Alps.
Also known as the three of life because of its
floral decorations evoking the spring re – birth,
the Bran is carried in a processions by a young
woman dressed in a traditional garb.
of Borgone di Susa, Chianocco, Villa Focchiardo and San Giorio (Vincenzo Aschieri was abbot of the Novalesa abbey and was immortalized in
a portrait by Giacomo Jaquerio).
The exterior of the chapel of St. Stefano, built in the ward of the same
name and believed to date back to the thirteenth century, is decorated
with a cycle of frescoes portraying the Cavalcade of Vices and Virtues, dating to somewhere between 1483 and 1490 and attributed to the Pinerolo
atelier of the Serra family; on the arch above the side entrance a warning
is inscribed “… vous seriez bien miserabile si vous prenez conseygl du diable…” [You will be wretched if you take advice from the Devil].
The parish church of San Vincenzo, built in 1065, exhibits different
strata of building stages and decorations. This can be seen in the remMeana,
Overall view.
47
The Susa Basin
The festival of the patron saint of Giaglione, Saint Vincent
D
nants of Medieval frescoes, although the predominant style of decoration
is Baroque. The main altar retable, a work done in the 1670s and later
dissembled and reused in the presbytery, is attributed to artisans from the
nearby transalpine Maurienne valley, specifically the ateliers of Bernard
Flandin, Jean Simon and Sébastien Rosaz. A similar attribution holds
for the Calvary group of sculptures, signed “Rosaz”. The first chapel on
the right houses the precious statue of Saint Vincent by Jean Clappier of
Bessans, dated to 1640-1650.
The commune of Meana lies along the road leading to the Finestre pass,
connecting the Susa valley to the Chisone Valley. It comprises a collection of scattered wards, including Campo del Carro, dominated by
the Romanesque bell tower of the parish church, and Suffis, with the
remains of the castle of the Ripa di Meana family, local feudal lords.
The parish church of Santa Maria Assunta was rebuilt in 1747, under
Gravere,
Historic centre.
I Mystère e le Histoire de vie
Among the popular traditions, the mystery plays
have always represented an important occasion in
the religious life of a community.
With their roots in sixteenth century French
popular theatre, the Mystères [Lives of the Saints]
in the alpine valleys are enactments meant to
48
ward off the epidemics.
Each town has its own: in Chiomonte it is
dedicated to Saint Sebastian; in Meana to the
Saints Costanzo and Maurice; in Venaus to Saint
Agatha; and lastly, the Passion of Christ has been
performed since 1925 in San Giorio.
Chiomonte,
Palazzo Levis.
49
The Susa Basin
the sponsorship of Cardinal delle Lanze, based on designs by Giovanni
Tommaso Prunotto of Guarene; some traces of the original foundation
riman in the bell tower.
Leaving Susa behind and heading towards the Montgenèvre pas you will
come to the commune of Gravere, which until 1713 marked the borderline between the Savoyard territory and the dominions of the French
crown. Mollare, a ward located along the valley road, has a nucleus of
dwelling datable to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, while the
ward Refornetto contains the parish church of the Nativity of Virgin
Mary and Saint Barbara. This church contains such notable works as the
altarpiece of the Nativity of Mary (1682). The chapel of the Madonna
della Losa, seat of the first Carthusians in Susa Valley, contains a precious
cycle of frescoes donated by Count Thomas I of Maurienne in 1189.
The frescoes, portraying the series of the Apostles, date to the second half
of the fourteenth century and are attributed to the so - called Master of
Santa Maria Maggiore.
Continuing up towards the Mongenèvre pass you come to Chiomonte;
its favorable position is highlighted on the town coat of arms: grapes
ripening in the sun. Chiomonte was part of the cisalpine Dauphiné until
the Treaty of Utrecht, when it was annexed into the domains of Vittorio
Amedeo II of Savoy. Travelling the Via Vittori Emanuele II, formerly
“chemin royal”, you will pass through the historical centre of the town
with its 1544 fountain. Vicolo Vescovado will take you to the Palazzo
D
Mountains trails
Well marked trails guide visitors through
the mountains of Chiomonte to the places,
known as the “Quattro Denti” [Four Teeth],
that witnessed the passage of the Wal-
denses of the “Glorieuse Rentrée” of 1689.
A number of beautiful ski – trails lead from
the Pian del Frais through the silent woods
of tamarack and beech.
dei Beraud, also known as the Vescovado, having been the summer residence of the Bishop of Pinerolo between 1748 and 1794. Nearby, in the
area formely occupied by the hospital of Jerusalem (run by the provostry
of Oulx since 1239), you will find the chapel of Santa Caterina, now deconsecrated, with a façade decorated with hanging arches and thirteenth
century style door. Continuing along Via Vittorio Emanuele II, after
passing a doorway dating to 1560, you will arrive in the small piazza in
front of the parish church of the Assunta, dominated by its Romanesque
- Gothic bell tower (1432). Inside, the baptismal font and the wooden
statue of Saint Roch belong to the late Medieval period.
The tabernacle on the main altar was designed by François Cuenot between 1650 and 1657, and crafted by Eymand Lard, who also created
the old pulpit, now used as a base for the main altar (1676), as well as the
50
Ramats, Chapel
St. Andrea. Master
of Coignet and
Ramats, Stories of
St. Andrew (detail),
ca 1490-1500.
The Susa Basin
Chiomonte,
in the ward
of Ramats.
Overall view.
D
wooden gallery and the main door, which he was commissioned to do
in 1683. The choir stalls and the prior’s seat date to 1673, made in the
workshop of Jacques Jesse of Embrun. The retable with spiral columns
on the altar of the Rosary (1682) is attributed to the sculptor Chaffrey
Faure. Among the patrician dwelling facing onto the chemin royal please
note the Ronsil house with its monochrome façade decorations, and
Palazzo Levis, now housing the town Pinacoteca dedicated to the works
of Giuseppe Augusto Levis (1873-1926), a landscape painter from Chiomonte. Extending our tour further backward in time, the Late-Neolithic
Maddalena settlement is of particular interest with its characteristic
dwelling set in among huge boulders unloosed in a landslide.
In the village of Ramats you will find the parish church of the Immacolata and the chapel of Sant’Andrea, with the celebrated frescoes of the
Stories of the Saint executed by Bartolomeo Serra and believed to date to
the end of the fifteenth century.
The “Gran Pertus”
The Gran Pertus is a tunnel (400 metres
long) bored at the slopes of the mountain
of the “Quattro Denti” (2000 metres) by
Colombano Romean from Chiomonte.
The tunnel was realized between 1526 and
1533 for take the water of the Clarea Valley
into the wards of Ramats of Chiomonte and
Cels of Exilles.
During the months when the level of the
water is small, is possible crossing the
tunnel with torches and appropriate clothes
and footwear.
51
52
E
The Cenischia Valley
Mont Cenis,
Ferrera. The royal
road upstream of
the town of Mont
Cenis Ferrera.
The itinerary that will take us beyond Susa through the Cenischia Valley to the Mount Cenis lies along one of the main historical transit
routes across the Alps, where we find the Novalesa abbey and the Moncenisio hospice, which were built along it during the Middle Ages.
The connection to the transalpine Arc Valley was the basis of the fortunes of this area since the Middle Ages: the carriage route ended in
Novalesa, where travelers could hire marrons, the legendary guides who
would continue with them up the mule trails across the pass. When the
news Napoleonic road was put in from Susa through Giaglione, the
communes along the Cenischia Valley were suddenly cut off from the
commercial traffic and began to decline.
Mompantero lies at the confluence of the Cenischia and the Dora
rivers. There is archaeological evidence of human presence in the area
since the Bronzo Age (c. 1500-900 BC), as seen in the incised rocks.
Settlements also existed in the middle Iron Age, on the basis of rock
paintings believed to date to approximately 600 BC. The main village
in the modern - day commune, Urbiano, was formerly a ward of Susa,
mentioned in 739 in the testament of Abbone, founder of the Novalesa
abbey; the road through it leads to Mount Rocciamelone and to the
fort of Pampalù.
The village of Trinità contains the small Mompantero castle, which
belonged to the De Castelletto family from 1294 to 1336: it is a
fortress - dwelling connected to the Porta Ferrata, a fortified gate
closing off the route through the Pietra Stretta and allowing control
over goods en route to the Mount Cenis pass. There is a particularly
interesting itinerary through the wards of Mompantero to explore
the surprising wealth of Baroque wall paintings on pillars and exte-
The xerothermic nature reserve of Rocciamelone
The xerothermic nature reserve of the Susa Valley encompasses the communes of Mompantero,
Susa, Bussoleno and Chianocco. The south-facing
slope is characterized by vegetation typical of the
steppes with copses of pubescent oak alternating
with agricultural fields and vineyards. The site
features flora and fauna which is typical of the
Mediterranean and steppe habitats, as well as a
variety of cliffnesting birds. The communes are
connected by a network of trails and mule paths.
53
riors of rural dwellings.
The climb up Mount Rocciamelone, believed in Medieval times to be
the highest peak in the Alps, along with Monviso (which is why Bonifacio Rotario, in 1358, chose to climb it for place the precious triptych
ex voto now located in the Museo Diocesano di Susa), passes by Ca’
d’Asti mountain hut, built between 1902 and 1942 on a site use like
stopping place since fifteenth century, while on the summit was placed,
in 1899, the bronze statue of the Madonna made by Giovanni Antonio
Stuardi, paid by contributions from 30.000 children all over Italy and
brought from Battaglione Alpini Susa. On the summit there is also the
Mompantero,
Our Lady of
Rocciamelone,
1899.
54
The Cenischia Valley
Venaus,
Parish Church
of San Biagio.
E
Venaus,
Sword Dancer.
shrine – hut Santa Maria, built between 1917 and 1923. The chapel
of Nostra Signora di Rocciamelone, a parish church since 1959, was
designed by the Susa architect E. Godone.
At the mouth of Cenischia Valley, following the road that passes through
Novalesa on its way to Mount Cenis, you will come to Venaus. The
parish church of SS. Biagio and Agata was rebuilt between 1901 and
1904 in a neo - Gothic style over a pre - existing structure. Inside, some
frescoes are still present located in the left aisle in the sixteenth century
and some of the original Baroque décor is still present, specifically,
The San Biagio Festival in Venaus
Saint Biagio day in early
February includes the Dance
of the Swords and women
known as “Savoiarde”
dressed in traditional
costumes.
The costumes are handed
from mother to daughter
and have small details
that indicate whether a
woman is nubile, married or
widowed.
the altar in the chapel of the
Holy Sacrament, reminiscent
of the style of the woodcarver
Jean Clappier of Bessans, as is
the group of sculptures Calvary,
which includes a fifteenth century Christ crucified.
The commune of Novalesa,
the main town along the valley leading to the Mount Cenis
pass, owes its international
fame to the Benedictine abbey of SS. Pietro and Andrea
founded there in 726 by Abbone. Acting as a sort of forward position
for the Franks near their border with the territory of the Langobards,
the abbey was strategically placed to control the Via Francigena. The
enormous power of the institution is evidence by its rich endowment
and its right to elect its own abbot independently as per the concession
granted in 773 by Charlemagne. In 906, fleeing the repeated attacks
of the Saracens, the monks abandoned the abbey and took refuge in
Breme, in an area known as Lomellina; one of the unfortunate consequences was the loss of the celebrated library.
In the eleventh century the Benedictines returned and restored the
complex, as attested by the frescoes dated to 1096 and 1097 in the
rebuilt chapel of St. Eldrado, abbot from 825 to 840, as recorded in
the Chronicon Novalicense. After the damages suffered in the tenth century, the abbey church was remodeled a number of times. Particularly
56
Venaus, Parish
Church of San
Biagio, Calvary
(XV-XVII
century).
Venaus, Parish
Church of San Biagio.
Piedmontese Painter
Cycle of the Passion,
beginning of XVI
century.
The Cenischia Valley
E
Novalesa,
Abbey of
SS. Pietro and
Andrea.
The cloister.
important were the decoration efforts of the priors and abbots in the
fifteenth century, from Vincenzo Aschieri of Giaglione – in office from
1398 to 1451 and patron of Giacomo Jaquerio – to the commendators
of the Provana family (starting in 1479), patrons of Antoine de Lonhy
from Toulouse. The current Baroque style derives from the designs of
Antonio bertola (1710-1718). After being suppressed in Napoleonic
times and converted to a spa in 1861, the abbey was entrusted to the
Benedictines from Subiaco in 1973. The entire complex has undergone intensive restoration campaigns from 1973 to 2009 and today
also houses the Archaeological Museum which contains the archaeo-
57
Novalesa, Parish
of St. Stefano.
A. de Lonhy,
Polyptic of the
Nativity with
Saints, late
fifteenth century.
logical finds emerging from the excavation campaigns carried out from
1978 to 2008.
The centre of Novalesa is dominated by the parish church of St. Stefano. The main altar bears the coat of arms of Giovanni Battista de
Castello of Caraglio, commendatory abbot from 1685 to 1728, and a
painting portraying a Martyrdom of Saint Stephen, attributed to Sebastiano Taricco, a painter from Cherasco.
Among the older works of art in the parish church are the reliquary of
St. Eldrado, goldwork of a twelfth century silversmith from the Meuse
– Rhine area, and the celebrated polyptych from the abbey of Novalesa, work of Antoine de Lonhy and collaborators, probably created
at the end of the fifteenth century.
In the church there are five paintings donated by Napoleon Bonaparte
to the Moncenisio hospice: the Deposition attributed to the Cremona
58
Novalesa, Parish
of St. Stefano.
Meuse-Rhine
Goldsmith,
Reliquary of
St. Eldrado,
XII century.
59
The Cenischia Valley
studio of Giulio Campi, the Adoration of the Magi of German origin, the
Adoration of the Shepaerds by François
Eldrado, born in Provence, presided over the
Lemoyne (1721), the Crucifixion of
Benedictine abbey in Novalesa until 840 AD. He is
Saint Peter, an old copy of the origiattributed with the miracle of having liberated the
nal by Caravaggio done in 1601, and
region of Brinçon from snakes by sealing them
the Deposition of Christ from the Cross,
into a cavern.
replica of an original by Dirck van
Baburen (seventeenth century).
Other works (sixteenth century and twenty century) are in the chapel
of the Confraternity of the Holy Sacrament, adjacent to the parish
church and site of the Museum of Alpine Religious Art (an integral
part of the Diocesan Museum System).
In 1947, with the shifting of the France - Italy border with the Treaty
of Paris, Moncenisio, located on the left bank of the Cenischia river at
the gates of the Vanoise National Park, became the smallest commune
in Piedmont. In the parish church of St. Giorgio there are numerous
examples of wooden sculptures, especially a number of noteworthy retables, coming from the celebrated and nearby Maurienne workshops.
But the patrons also expressed a clear desire to incorporate new works
from the Lombard area.
While the altar dedicated to St. Anthony is attributable to the transalpine French culture, the altar of the Rosary (1683) is a recognized masterpiece coming out of Lombardy and Piedmont.
The intermixture of elements from different cultures is seen again in
the group of the Calvaryon the triumphal arch, where the early sev-
The legend of Saint Eldrado
E
enteenth century Christ crucified speaks the language of the itinerant
Lombard workshops, while the Virgin and Saint John are attributable
to a late seventeenth century artist from the Maurienne.
Noteworthy among the filials of the parish church is also the chapel
of St. Giuseppe, decorated with a Via Crucis that is the work of the
fifteenth contemporary century.
The ex customs men’s club officers houses the Eco-museum “Le Terre
di Confine”, where you can see objects of everyday life of the past of
these lands. The Mont Cenis pass, connecting door between the Po
Valley and northern Europe, became one of the main mountain passes
in the early Middle Ages. Included among the possessions of Novalesa
from 739, the hill - mostly occupied by a spectacular alpine lake ex-
60
Mont Cenis.
Lake Ferrera.
Mont Cenis, Parish of
San Giorgio, Ferrera.
The Cenischia Valley
The Napoleonic road
Pope Pius VII
crossing the
Mont Cenis, (XIX
century).
E
The road that climbs from Susa to the
Mount Cenis pass and then descends to
Lanslebourg faithfully follows, with the
exception of the area around the lake, the
route of the nineteenth century Napoleonic
road.
The first carriage route across the
mountains, it was 37 km long and very well
organized with regular maintenance and
services to aid travelers. The construction
of the road caused the isolation of
Cenischia Valley and the ruin of the
marrons, the guides who had been helping
travelers across the Moncenisio pass since
the Middle Ages.
panded considerably with the construction of the dam between 1964
and 1968 – houses a hospice for pilgrims founded by Ludovico il Pio
between 814 and 825. In 1204, the hospice became a dependency of
the novalicensi monks and was entrusted to the Augustinians in 1227
and directly submitted to the Holy See. In 1802, houses part of the
personal property of Novalesa, suppressed by the French government;
at the same time, start the reconstruction by Napoleon Bonaparte, on
the model of the Gran San Bernardo, with a prestigious campaign furniture that (1810) will see the reuse of material from Venaria. With
the construction of the dam, carried out between 1964 and 1968, the
ancient hospice, barracks and part of the Napoleonic fortifications of
the Alpine range (late nineteenth century) were under water.
61
62
F
The Plain of Oulx
Oulx, Puy
Beaulard village.
Overall view.
The commune of Exilles, located at the foots of the Serre la Voute,
a crucial junction of strategic importance for access to the pass of
Montgenèvre, is the point of departure for this itinerary. The territory
is characterized by the Dora mountain torrent running through the
valley and is dominated by the fortress situated on the rocky crag and
recorded as existing since twelfth century.
Following the state road, before reaching the plain of Oulx, but
after Serre la Voute, we reach Salbertrand, following the course of
the river we reach the territory of Oulx, the meeting point of the
Dora mountain torrent and the Dora di Bardonecchia branch of the
same river flowing from the west. Because of its position on the route
across the Mongenèvre pass connecting the plain of Rodano with the
Po valley, since prehistoric times Oulx has been a meeting place of
peoples and exchange for the passing cultures. The itinerary proposed
concludes at Sauze d’Oulx, located on the western side of Mount
Generis and surrounded by the peaks of Mount Triplex and Mount
Bourget.
The village of Exilles, distinguished by significant civil and religious
buildings, developed over time as an agrarian centre and was
surrounded by a wall to defend it from the continuous aggressions
Exilles, Parish
of St. Peter.
high altar (XVII
century).
63
aimed at taking what was a strategic position for controlling the
numerous armies that crossed the valley. The fort, already mentioned
in chronicles from the mid - twelfth century, was built on the site of a
Romanesque castrum, in turn, replaced a center of defense of the local
Celtic-Ligurian people.
The vicissitudes of the fortification and its transformations are
connected with its role as a front - line position for French advances
into territories of the House of Savoy: up until the Treaty of Utrecht
(1713) when it was definitively assigned to the Savoy. Under the
Treaty of Paris (1796), signed by the French Republic and the King of
Sardinia, it was demolished, but it was rebuilt between 1818 and 1829
in its present appearance thanks to the work of able professionals of
The fortress of Exilles by the Counts of Albon to the
National Museum of the Mountain
The restoration of the complex, promoted
by Piedmont Region since 1978, has led to
its opening to the public in 2000.
The visit tour, from the Royal Ramp,
through the first and second bite, leading to
the Courtyard of the Knight. From here you
enter the exhibition sections: by the selec-
64
tion of uniforms of the Alpine troops to the
collections of the National Museum of the
Mountain CAI Torino, to the six exhibitions
on the life of the soldier in the mountains,
graphic documentation of the fortified
Western Alps, set up in the Diamond Bastion.
Exilles,
Overall view.
Salbertrand,
Parish of
St. Giovanni
Battista.
65
The Plain of Oulx
the House of Savoy. It was abandoned by the military on 8 September
1943, the date that marks its decline: this process was halted when it
was acquired by the Piedmont Region, which has been undertaking
a process of restoration and valorization since 1978, giving the fort a
new role as a museum (in 2000).
The parish church of St. Pietro Apostolo in the historical centre of
Exilles is worthy of particular interest. It is commonly known as the
place where, in 1453, a monstrance containing the consecrated host
was stolen; the monstrance reappeared the same year on 6 June and
caused the miracle of the Blessed Sacrament in Piazza San Silvestro in
Turin. The building, rich in complex historical layers, has a strongly
splayed stone portal.
The high altar dates from 1682, while both the Rosary altar and the
altar of the Blessed Cross, with a retable attributed to the circle of
Chaffrey Faure of Thures, are from the early eighteenth century; the
pulpit, instead, is dated 1728 and is the work of Jean Faure. At the
entrance to the town we find the chapel of St. Rocco, built in 1660
with blocks of sculpted stone that were reused after the demolition of
F
Salbertrand,
Parish of
St. Giovanni
Battista.
G. Dideris,
Stories of
St. Anthony
Abbot, 1508.
an earlier building.
Our route continues towards the communes of the High Susa Valley
where we come to Salbertrand. The name of the commune can be
found for the first time in the annals of Ottone III in 1001, under the
name of Sala Bertae; it became Salabertanum in documents relating
to the bequest of the Countess Adelaide di Susa to the Chapter of
Oulx (1057). The settlement, concentrated around the old French
road, still conserves civil architecture of considerable excellence and
suggestive ancient fountains. In the commune there is also the Gran
Bosco di Salbertrand’s Natural Park. Close to the old road stands the
ancient parish church of St. Giovanni Battista. This building has a
large vestibule (dating 1536), an almost unique example of its kind in
the High Susa Valley. The entrance is enhanced by a rich stone portal
with deeply splayed columns, dating from 1512, the work of Matteo
Roude of Melezet.
The interior houses a series of decorative fresco cycles painted between
fourteenth and sixteenth century. The imposing high altar is by Jean
Faure of Thures (1667), while the monumental tabernacle comes
from a workshop in Grenoble. At the edge of Salbertrand towards
Oulx, in the ward of Oulme, there is the chapel of the Annunciation,
which has valuable frescoes dating back to 1534.
From Salbertrand we proceed to the plain of Oulx, where the road
forks off towards Cesana and Bardonecchia. Still today the Borgo
Vecchio, i.e. the historical centre of the village, conserves buildings
66
67
The Plain of Oulx
Oulx, Dauphin
view of the
tower and the
parish church
of Santa Maria
Assunta.
dating back to the Middle Ages that recall a wealthy and active
community which owed its prosperity also to the Chapter of San
Lorenzo (the remains of the Chapter are in the area of the Abbadia: see
the box). Another important religious building is the parish church
of Santa Maria Assunta which stands on a hill of the Borgo Vecchio,
mentioned between 1050 and 1061 and remodeled in 1861. Among
the contents still conserved in the building are the retable of the high
altar, a prestigious work in wood inlay executed in the workshop of
Jacques Jesse of Embrun between 1670 and 1676 and gilded in 1678
by Peter Milander, and paintings by Mario Zuccaro and Bernardo
Orlando, who were active at the court of Carlo Emanuele I of Savoy.
In a dominant position over the village stands the Delfinate tower,
first mentioned in the 1370s. The square tower is built in stone and
the battlements are still well preserved; it was subjected to a remodeled
project and now houses art exhibitions.
In the village you can find the chapel of San Rocco, built probably in
the seventeenth century, which has a large painting of St. Rocco and St.
Anthony Abbot at the foot of the Virgin.
F
Oulx, Parish
Church of Santa
Maria Assunta,
general view of
the interior.
To the right:
Oulx, The Church
of the Sacred Heart
(the former church
of San Pietro
Prevostura).
In the slopes surrounding the town of Oulx you can find numerous
and striking alpine villages, often embellished with small but
important chapels such as those of Gad and Pont Ventoux, recently
restored thanks to the project “Little church, Great love”. Gad’s
chapel dedicated to Saint Claudius of Besançon, dates from the
nineteenth century and houses a wooden railing of the choir, which
bears carved floral motifsand a representation in relief of the Holy
Shroud, the Notre Dame de Pont Ventoux, dedicated to Our Lady
of Annunciation. She was oncelocated near the bridge over the Dora,
and after the project of the highway, was reconstructed in the region
“Ponte Ventoso”.
In the west of the villages, in the direction of Bardonecchia, you can
find the wards once independent from the administrative point of view,
including Beaulard, Chateau Beaulard and
Savoulx, retain beautiful parish churches,
mostly built between the mid-fifteenth
century and the beginning of the seventeenth
century.
The church of San Michele Arcangelo at
Beaulard is already mentioned in the bull
of Bishop Cuniberto of Turin (1065), who
donated it to the Chapter of Oulx. The
building is laid out in three naves covered by a
cross vault and has been amply modified over
time; it still conserves a small Romanesque
68
Oulx, Chapel of
San Rocco.
The Chapter of Oulx
Also known as Plebs Martyrum, the parish church
of San Lorenzo in the eleventh century came to
form the nucleus of the Chapter of Oulx: 1065
is consider the year in which the institution was
officially recognized and placed under the rule of
Saint Augustine by Bishop Cuniberto of Turin. The
Chapter, with the churches of San Pietro and San
Lorenzo, suffered heavily because of the wars
between Catholics and Protestants, in particular
between 1562 and 1574, when the monastery
was destroyed.
During the seventeenth century it underwent
a rebirth, also from a structural point of view:
indeed the restoration of the hospital and the
church of St. Peter, date from 1614, while the
rebuilding of the rectory, under René de Birague,
took place in 1663.
In 1713 the Treaty of Utrecht marked the passage
of the High Susa Valley to the House of Savoy: the
consequent weakening of the Chapter reached
its lowest point in 1748, when the last Provost
of Oulx, Jean Baptiste d’Orlié de Saint-Innocent,
was nominated first bishop of Pinerolo. At his
death in 1794, the parishes of the Susa Valley,
already under the ecclesiastic jurisdiction of
the Diocese of Pinerolo, passed to the Diocese
of Susa, founded in 1772. The remains of the
church of San Pietro, now the Sacred Heart, and
the buildings surrounding to it were subjected
to a rebuilding campaign in the late nineteenth
century, when it became property of the Salesians
in 1895. The church still houses the sepulchral
monument of René de Birague.
69
The Plain of Oulx
bell tower (XII-XIII century). The present counter-façade, once the
apse, contains an important cycle of frescoes depicting the Pantocrator
and the Apostles dating to the eighties of the fifteenth century.
In the small village of Chateau Beaulard we find the parish church
of St. Bartolomeo, rebuilt on the remains of a previous chapel in
1493, when this new parish, separated from Beaulard, was formed.
The building has a single nave and is characterized by an imposing
bell tower showing features common to others of the RomanesqueDauphin style. Inside, there is a significant retable on the high altar, a
work commissioned from Chaffrey Faure in 1736, which incorporates
the Dufour altarpiece dating from the end of the seventeenth century.
The Rosary altar was also remodeled by Faure in 1742 on a pre-existing structure, incorporating another Dufour altarpiece; moreover,
F
Sauze d’Oulx, in the
ward of Jouvenceaux,
The chapel of
St. Antonio Abate.
the church houses the remains of the famous ancona of the Mass of
St. Gregory, from the end of fifteenth century, which is now mutilated
due to the theft, in 1976, of the statuettes which adorned it.
The church of San Giovanni Battista at Puy Beaulard, built in 1861,
and became a parish church in 1889, houses an interesting Baroque style altarpiece in carved wood, originating from Modane.
The parish church of San Gregorio Magno in Savoulx, built in 1451
on an enormous rock mass with a panoramic view over the surrounding
village, consecrated and opened for worship in 1454, has maintained a
certain stylistic homogeneity, with Romanesque and Gothic elements
and with the addition of the
apse built in 1662.
Features of the exterior are
the slender bell tower with
its cuspidal point, while the
facade is embellished by a
stone portal dated 1532.
The high altar, with its rich
retable in carved wooden is
attributed to Jacques Jesse of
Embrun and dated around
1662, while the imposing
chancel is from 1555.
70
Sauze d’Oulx,
in the ward of
Jouvenceaux, Chapel
of St. Antonio Abate.
B. Serra, The Last
Judgement (detail),
1480-90.
Sauze d’Oulx,
Parish of
St. Giovanni
Battista,
the interior.
71
The Plain of Oulx
The recent restoration operations have brought to light, along the left
nave, a fresco cycle of the second decade of the sixteenth century attributed to the Master of Savoulx, depicting scenes from the life of
Saint Anthony Abbot and the Virgin.
Leaving the territory of Oulx, on the western side of Mount Genevris,
we find the commune of Sauze d’Oulx, preceded by the village of
Jovenceaux, where we have the chapel of Saint Anthony, built in
the second half of the fifteenth century. And famous for the cycle of
frescoes, dated by historians between 1480 and 1490, which decorate
both the exterior and the interior. The important pictorial decoration,
reveled by recent restoration, has been attributed to the painters
Bartolomeo and Sebastian Serra from Pinerolo.
The parish church of Sauze d’Oulx was built at the beginning of the
sixteenth century and consecrated in 1534, the date which is engraved
over a secondary door. The original layout of the building was a single
space with a rectangular apse, the sacristy located behind the apse and
two lateral chapels were added after the second half of the eighteenth
century. The late Gothic layout of the church of San Giovanni Battista
can be seen from the façade portal sculpted into tufa stone.
Inside is the rich, imposing retable of the high altar, carved in wood
between 1703 and 1704 by Chaffrey Faure of Thures, but gilded only
in 1732 by Joseph Grillet. On the ski slopes above Sauze d’Oulx, at
2274 meters, the Capanna del Lago Nero has recently been restored
by Giovanni Brino, designed by the architect Carlo Mollino (19461947), converted into a museum and exhibition centre.
F
72
G
The Valleys of Cesana
Sestriere,
Overall view.
The tour will touch the main commune of the valley of Cesana,
then up to the hills of Montgenèvre and Sestriere. The commune of
Cesana, located in a large basin at the confluence of the Dora and
Ripa river, dominated from above by the peak of Chaberton (3130
meters). The village, of ancient origin, is mentioned in t Roman
itineraries under the names of “Goesao” or “Gadaone”, a place of great
importance because it was located on the route of the Roman road
which led from the Po Valley to the Gaul.
The hill of Montgenèvre, which links the High Susa Valley with the
Durance Valley, was one of the most visited settlements in ancient
times. The commune of Claviere, which lies near the hill, has always
been influenced by the presence of the Roman “Via ad Galliam”,
playing an important role as stopping point. From Claviere it is
also possible to reach the peak of Mount Chaberton: the fort, built
between 1898 and 1910 as a defense from possible French attacks,
was one of the highest fortification in Europe and was seriously
damaged in the June 1940 by the cannons of the French artillery.
The route will then continue with the communes of the Ripa Valley,
in the direction of Sestriere. From the villages of Bousson and Thures
to Sauze di Cesana, up to 2035 meters of altitude in Sestriere, ski
resort known for its attractions.
After leaving Oulx, after a few kilometers a deviation indicates the
commune of Desertes, which is not accessible by vehicle but can be
visited by climbing up on footil. Isolated on the mountain stands the
church of Santa Margherita, which was enlarged in 1487 and become
a parish church. The building is an example of noteworthy historical,
artistic and architectural interest.
Continuing in the direction of Cesana Torinese, you find to the
commune of Fenils. The parish church of San Giuliano was built in
1490 and successively enlarged in 1753 and 1758. The plan of the
church is set out in three naves covered by a wooden ceiling in small
lacunar panels, based on a model already found in the parish church
of Cesana, the original part of which has been dated as being from the
last quarter of the seventeenth century. The high altar, dating from
around 1670, incorporates an altarpiece from the same period, which
testifies to local devotion to St. Julian together with St. Sebastian, and
73
The Black Lake
and the Valley of Thuras
The landscape around Cesana is characterized
by two environmental heritage sites in the nearby
valleys: the Black Lake, with the Fournier mountain and the Thuras Valley. Featuring alpine prairies, mixed tamarack and arolla pine woods with
occasional exemplars of mountain pine, these
sites are home to many alpine animals, including
chamois, hares and black grouse.
carries the date 1758, a date which is to be understood as referring
to the gilding of the retable. The façade is characterized by a hut –
shaped pronaos, beside which stands the imposing bell tower with a
peak in cusp – shaped stonework in Romanesque-Dauphine style.
Continuing, we find the commune of Cesana. The parish church of
St. John the Baptist stands in a dominant position over the centre.
Local historians have dated the beginning of construction to the
middle of one thousand, but has undergone profound changes. The
building is laid out in three naves, with three large spans separating
74
Cesana Torinese,
Black Lake.
Cesana Torinese,
General view with
the Parish of St.
Giovanni Battista.
The Valleys of Cesana
Cesana Torinese,
Parish of
St. Giovanni
Battista,
The interior.
G
the lateral naves from the central one, which is covered by a wooden
ceiling by François Ruas du Pont (1678). The façade, with its broken
gables, is characterized by the presence of fragments of frescoes and a
portal dating from 1518. The imposing bell tower in RomanesqueDauphine style, is compact in appearance and the cusp has an
octagonal base.
Continuing our itinerary, the road leading to the Montgenèvre
mountain pass goes through the commune of Claviere, a famous ski
resort. Here the parish church of the Visitation of Holy Mary was built
in 1936 and designed in 1928 by Giuseppe Momo. The building was
bombed on 8 September 1944 and rebuilt and inaugurated in 1949.
Going back to Cesana and following the road for Sestriere, we come
in the Ripa Valley.
The legend of the Tyrant of Cesana
According to legend, the feudal lord of
Cesana, Desours Tholosan, had tyrannically imposed the practice of jus primae
noctis. For this outrage, he was killed
by a man of Cesana disguised as a new
wife.
A similar fate awaited his son, who was
defenestrated through the window of
the bell tower. This is a recurrent tale
in the popular tradition, and is the main
themeof the historical re-enactment held
every in April in San Giorio di Susa.
75
Excursion to Mount Chaberton
The summit of Mount Chaberton, at 3130 meters
above sea level, is reached via a long and
pleasant walk through broad plains and beautiful
tamarack forests leading to a steep stony road
up to the first military installation.
From here, a trail among rocky scree to the
tower of Chaberton, Europe’s highest fortification
built between 1898 and 1910.
Along the way you come into the commune of Bousson. The parish
church of Our Lady of the Snow stands above the residential area
of the village and can be reached following a paved path ending in
a stone steps which lead to the parvis and the nearby graveyard. Set
in the wall surrounding the graveyard, and quite easily visible while
Mount
Chaberton.
Claviere,
Overall view.
76
The Valleys of Cesana
climbing the steps, is the Visitation, a stone sculpture consider to be
from the first half of the eighteenth century, a work attributed to the
so-called Master of Bousson. The church was built between 1505 and
1515, with the birth of the parish. The building, with a single nave,
inside contains a number of paintings of considerable interest, in
particular the fresco of Our Lady of Mercy, on the left wall (XVI sec.).
The façade out thanks to the portal, important because it is one of the
most representative works of Matthew Rouda, dated about 1514, and
the weighty wooden main door. The Romanesque - Dauphine bell
tower with a stone cusp completes this imposing façade.
G
Cesana Torinese,
in the ward of
Thures. Parish
of St. Maria
Maddalena,
the interior.
77
78
Sestriere,
Overall view.
Sauze di Cesana,
Parish of
St. Restituto.
79
The Valleys of Cesana
Bousson also houses, thought in a poor state of condition, the socalled “Casa delle Lapidi”: the façade of the building is decorated
with a series of stone plates with inscriptions in old French, of moral
and religious proverbs, from the eighteenth century.
Having passed the village of Bousson we climb up to the isolated
village of Thures, set in a natural environment of great value. The
parish church of Santa Maria Maddalena, built in the mid-fifteenth
century, built on the natural slope of the terrain, is part of the
surrounding village. Inside, the high altar contains a rich wooden
altarpiece from the end of the seventeenth century.
From Cesana, following the road to Sauze di Cesana, we come across
the the parish church of San Restituto, isolated in the fields, whose
existence is recorded in a document from the twelfth century. The
church is set out in a single nave and still contains some paintings that
are extremely important in understanding late mannerist painting in
the Valley. The façade is preceded by Renaissance style portico, and
one of the elements that stand out most in this building is beyond
doubt the impressive bell tower with an octagonal based cusp. The
building was used as a fort during the religious wars of the sixteenth
century.
The final destination of this itinerary is the commune of Sestriere. The
parish church of St Edward’s stands in the main square of Sestriere set
in a small churchyard with an ample parvis. The church was built by
Senator Giovanni Agnelli, as in memory of his son Edward, who died
in an accident in 1935. Consecrated by Msgr. Umberto Ugliengo,
G
Sestriere, with
historical views
of ancient
towers and
the Parish
church of
St. Edward.
80
The Valleys of Cesana
G
Sestriere, Parish of
St. Edoardo.
E. Rubino, Crucifix,
1937 (left),
A. Dazzi, Portal,
1937 (right).
Bishop of Susa in 1937, it became the parish church in 1960. The
building, in Neo - Romanesque style, is decorated with refined and
elaborated artworks by some of the most famous Italian artists of the
twentieth century.
Worthy of mention are: the high altar with a large Crucifix and two
adoring angels, the statue of Our Lady of Sorrows, by Edoardo Rubino
(1871-1954), the statue of St Edward and the fourteen stations of the
Via Crucis, by Francesco Messina (1900-1995), the holy water font,
supported by angels, and the central portal in bronze, portraying
Edoardo Agnelli’s seven children of and the two lateral doors in
bronze, portraying angels by Arturo Dazzi (1881-1966).
Skiing in Sestriere
It was around 1934, that the world - famous winter
Sestriere sports resort of international fame was
born. The life and history of Sestriere are closely
bound up with the ski world: it hosted its first ski
races in the World Cup in 1967, with two downhill
runs on the “Banchetta” slopes, which once again
host a major international sporting event for the
Turin Winter Olympic Games in 2006. Sestriere is
an integral part of the Via Lattea with Sauze d’Oulx,
Cesana, San Sicario, Monti della Luna and Fréjus.
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82
H
The Bardonecchia basin
Bardonecchia,
in the ward of
Melezet, Chapel
N.A. du Coignet.
The territory of Bardonecchia is spread in over a vast basin where the
valleys of Rochemolles, Rho, Valle Stretta and Fréjus meet. Around
the middle of the tenth century, the expulsion of the Saracens from the
valley, at the hand of Arduino il Glabro, led to a period of peace in the
whole Susa Valley and the establishment of a number of local lordship.
Vitbaldo, founder of the De Bardonisca family, maintained his control
over the area of the Dora of Bardonecchia up to the Scala and Rho
hills. After a period of great internal instability, in 1713 Bardonecchia
became part of the domains of the Savoy family. The nineteenth century saw the excavation of the Frejus tunnel, which opened a new era
for trade and tourism; in fact, with the birth of Alpinism and skiing,
Bardonecchia became a tourist destination and resort, bringing noteworthy expansion in housing and the building of large hotels. The first
ski jump in Italy was built in Colomion and inaugurated by Adolfo
Kind at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The town of Borgovecchio di Bardonecchia is dominated by the imposing presence of the parish church of St. Hippolytus, built between
1826 and 1829 on the foundations of the older Romanesque church
of Santa Maria, the existence of which can now only seen thanks to the
small bell tower still visible today.
The building in one single nave with side chapels houses, in its interior,
important examples of local artistic production, such as the baptismal
font, sculpted by Jean Roude Gros of Melezet in 1573. Among the
contents that recall the late medieval church style in Bardonecchia are
Bardonecchia,
Parish of St.
Ippolito, wooden
choir (XV century).
83
the precious examples of polychrome wood sculpture of the Madonna
and Child and St. Sebastian, attributed to Dauphinesculptor to the end
of the fifteenth century.
Sixteenth-century painting is represented by the triptych of the Madonna with Saints Hippolytus and George: the impressing retable of the
high altar enclose an altarpiece that can be attributed to the workshop
of the Dufour brothers and also incorporates a dais with a bas-relief
depicting scenes from the Passion, dating to between the fifteenth and
sixteenth century, attributed to the Serra workshop. Among the furnishings, of particular note is the wooden choir purchased by Don Giuseppe Maria Vachet, originally at the Benedictine abbey of Novalesa.
This work, dated between 1430 and 1450, carries the coat of arms of
Vincenzo Aschieri di Giaglione, who commissioned it. In a dominant
position over the town, outside the Borgovecchio, stand the ruins of
the Tur d’ Amun, an ancient castle of the family of De Bardonisca. The
first certain mention of these site goes back to the end of the fourteenth
century, but recent archaeological investigations and restoration opera84
Bardonecchia,
Winter view of the
Borgo Vecchio.
85
The Bardonecchia basin
Bardonecchia,
Vintage view
of the
New Village and
the Via Medail.
tions have brought to light older structures which can be dated from
the thirteenth century.
Standing on the higher ground above the entrance to the Bardonecchia
basin is the imposing presence of a fortification: Fort Bramafam. Built
between 1886 and 1893 on the site of a medieval castle, protecting the
entrance of the Frejus rail tunnel, and successively strengthened during the 1903s and in the Second World War, was finally restored at
the end of the 1990s by the Association for the History and Military
Architecture and now houses a museum.
From Bardonecchia, heading towards the valley of Sommelier, we
come to Rochemolles, with its beautiful parish church of San Pietro
mentioned in the chronicle of 1296 but rebuilt in the mid-fifteenth
century. The church has two naves with a polygonal apse, a choir and
bell tower; the wooden
polychrome box vault ceiling, the frescoes decorations of the arch and the
chapel of San Sebastiano
are dated between the late
fifteenth and early sixteenth
centuries. From a period of
redecoration at the end of
XVII - beginning of XVIII
century we still have two
precious paintings: the Madonna and Child with Saints
Peter and Paul (1698) and
Our Lady of the Rosary and
Saints Dominic, Anthony
and Catherine of Siena
(1703), both of them carry
the signature of Gabriel
Dufour.
The small countryside
chapel in Prà Lavin, built
in the second half of the
fifteenth century, contains
frescoes from the end of
the fifteenth and early sixteenth century. Also on the
left side of the Dora di Bar-
H
Bardonecchia, in the
ward of Rochemolles.
Parish of St. Pietro
Apostolo, views of
the frescoes of the
martyrdom of
St. Sebastian
(Master of Coignet
and Ramats, early
sixteenth century)
and wooden lacunar
ceiling (second half of
XV century).
86
The Bardonecchia basin
Bardonecchia,
in the area of
Horres, Chapel of
Ss. Andrea and
Giacomo. Stories
S. Andrea, 1530 a.c.
H
donecchia is located, in a panoramic position, Millaures, whose parish
church of St Andrew was built on the site of a fifteenth century church
completely demolished in the last decade of the nineteenth century.
The new building is laid out in two naves and contains significant examples of stone and wooden sculpture.
At a short distance from Millaures, Les Horres (location accessible
only on foot through a short and scenic trail), we find the chapel of
Saints Andrew and James, containing cycles of frescoes, which come
from the first decades of the sixteenth century, with stories of the two
Saints and a depiction of the Cavalcade of Vices (façade).
Along the road that leads to the Della Scala hill, leaving the village
of Bardonecchia, we come to the town land of Les Arnauds, with the
parish church of San Lorenzo, transformed and enlarged in 1632. The
plan of the church consists of one nave and the element that most
characterizes it is the little Romanesque bell tower. The baptismal font,
87
88
Bardonecchia, in the
ward of Melezet.
Chapel N.A. du
Coignet. Master of
Coignet and Ramats,
Deposition of the
Visitation and
St. Grato, 1496.
dating from 1632, is the work of Anthoine le Ourcellet and carries the
coat of arms of France and of the Delfinate, the papal coat of arms
and a third symbol indicating the craftsman himself. The area of the
prebytery is dominated by the imposing, composite and complex altar,
dating from the beginning of the eighteenth century. Climbing up to
Pian del Sole we find the chapel of Notre-Dame du Coignet, built in
the mid-fifteenth century and enlarged around 1520. The frescoes on
the back wall are from 1496 and represent the Visitation, San Grato enthroned and the Pity, while on the lateral wall Sant’Agata, the Dormitio
Virginia, St. John the Baptist and the Resurrection. The façade, finally,
contains an Annunciation, Saint Christopher and Saint Jerome. A polyptych, once part of the church’s artworks, is now housed at the Museum
of Religious Alpine Art in Melezet.
After the town land of Les Arnauds we come to Melezet, with the parish church of Sant’Antonio Abate, notable for its imposing bell tower
visible from the State Road. The building, built between 1694 and
il1698, is laid out in three naves and has a bell tower with a solid high
base and two-arched openings on the crown. The slender octagonal
cusp features four acroterions, in the form of turned pinnacles.
The recent restoration of this church has brought back the original
continuity to the frescoed decoration that characterized both the ex-
89
The Bardonecchia basin
Bardonecchia,
in the ward of
Melezet. Parish of
St. Antonio Abate,
high altar (1698).
H
The archaeological area of Tur d’ Amun
The De Bardonisca family during the twelfth
century established their power in the Bardonecchia basin: they controlled local transit across the
minor Alpine passes (Scala, Fréjus and Rho) and
entered the political realm of the Counts of the
Dauphiné. With the consolidation of their seniority
they built their castrum (castle), emblem of the
institutional prerogatives of the family, around the
so-called Tur of Amun (above the Borgovecchio
di Bardonecchia) and in the XII and XIII centuries
they undertook the construction of a fortified
complex serving as a residence for the different
branches of the family, as well as a center of
military and economic organization. Archaeological investigations conducted in recent years made
it possible to understand the evolution of the
structure: it appears that a defensive curtain wall
was supported on terraces cut into the slope and
abutted on the massive stone tower. During the
Middle Ages (XIV-XV centuries), the corners of the
innermost walls, the donjon, were protected by
two turrets, the courtyard was occupied with new
buildings and a reception room was installed at
the base of the tower with a fireplace and windows oriented towards the village. The floor of the
castle was excavated and cellars were installed
that were accessible via a spiral staircase. After
a battle during the Wars of Religion (1562), in
the seventeenth century ownership of the castle
shifted to the De Jouffrey family, who remodeled
the complex to suit the new tastes and functional
requirements. In the eighteenth century the castle
was abandoned and slowly deteriorated.
Until the beginning of the excavations and restoration work in 1999, all that remained was the
tower and Medieval documents to testify to the
once massive structure, revealed in 2003-2004.
The current layout of the site - accessible at all
times, with the exception of the tower (open at
certain times of the year or by appointment) - allows a visit to the restored ruins of the castle and
the tower, along with informative notices on the
history and on the archaeological investigations
of this important site in its beautiful landscape
setting.
terior walls of the portico and interior. The retable of the high altar
can be dated between 1698 and 1699; the lateral Rosary altar and the
one dedicated to Saint Anthony the Abbot are a result of the reuse
of the pre-existing structure attributed to the sculptor Jesse Jacques
(mid-seventeenth century). The altarpiece of the high altar, donated
by Giovanni Agnes des Geneys in 1698, has been attributed to the
workshop of the Dufour family who can be considered the creators of
the paintings in the lateral altars. Along the main street of Melezet we
also find the Chapel of the Madonna del Carmine. The small building,
built in 1647, is laid out in one single nave headed by the apse and is
characterized by a singular bell tower set over the main entrance. The
90
Bardonecchia,
Tur d’Amun.
The Bardonecchia basin
Bardonecchia,
in the ward of
Melezet. Chapel
of St. Sisto,
Master of Savoulx,
Judgement, early
sixteenth century.
current configuration of the building is the result of several modifications, and at the end of 1990s the function of the building has been
changed from that of a church to museum of the Museum of Religious
Alpine Art.The museum is part of the Museum of the Diocese of Susa
and houses works in silver, wooden statues, paintings and frescoes from
chapels in the area, in particular of the parish church of Melezet, Les
Arnauds, Rochemolles, and Puy Millaures Beaulard. Not far from here
in the village of Melezet, in the direction of Colle della Scala, stands on
a rocky outcrop, the chapel of San Sisto. Built in the second half of the
fifteenth century, it conserves a significant number of frescoes by the
painter Bartolomeo and Sebastiano Serra of Pinerolo. The frescos date
from 1475 to 1546. The façade depicts the Last Judgement, while inside
contains scenes of life of St. Sixtus; the right wall has paintings devoted
to the Annunciation, the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian and St. Christopher
and the Crucifixion.
Bardonecchia, in the
ward of Melezet.
Alpine Museum of
Religious Art.
Piedmontese painter,
Polyptych, late
fifteenth century.
Master of the Mass of
St. Gregory, Madonna
and Child, early
sixteenth century.
91
H
92
1
Archaeology
Susa, Roman
aqueduct, third
century A.D.
Vaie,
The Museum of
Archaeology.
At times historical relics overcome great odds to regain their rightful
place as valued treasures. This occurred in Susa in June of 1802
when two splendid lorica-clad marble torsi 8first century AD) were
exhumed from the old city walls that were being cannibalized for
construction materials. The torsi were transferred the next year to
Paris by the French government, returned to Piedmont in 1815,
and are now in the collections of the Turin Museo di Antichità.
These sculptures were of such exceptional quality that they attracted
the attention of the sculptor Antonio Canova (1757-1822), who
immediately requested drawings of them. In the late nineteenth
century the extraction of peat near the Small Lake of Avigliana led
to the discovery of Piedmont’s largest pile-dwelling (palafitte). And
in the 1980s and 1990s, work on the Fréjus motorway resulted in
the surprising finds of the archaeological areas of Chiomonte La
Maddalena, Rosta-Verné and Rivoli-Truc Perosa.
Among the archaeological sites we will describe here the oldest
are the rock dwelling of Vaie (in the Baità area). Excavations in
the late nineteenth century by Antonio Taramelli (1868-1948)
unearthed evidence of human presence from the middle Neolithic
period up to the Copper Age (c. 5000 to 2200 BC). However, Vaie
is not the only alpine rock dwelling to strike the imagination of
ancient Roman writers. The water-carved dwellings in the Orrido
di Chianocco [Chianocco Gorge] on the south slopes of Mount
Rocciamelone date back to the fourth millennium BC, as does
the Maddalena di Chiomonte Neolithic site (4000-3500 BC),
93
discovered in 1984. Chiomonte is in an area subject to landslides,
and it was a landslides that sealed the settlement and the necropolis
with its cists. Sheltered by the great rock masses, a late-Neolithic
people established a settlement here (Chassey culture: ceramics
and stone tools are exhibited at the Civico Museo Archeologico
at Cascina “La Maddalena”). The community benefited from the
advantageous geographical position near outcroppings of native
copper and along the route leading to Vallée de la Clarée and to
the Col Clapier. From c. 3500 to 1500 BC, i.e., from the Copper
Age to the mid Bronze Age, the small caves in the Chianocco Gorge
were used as burial vaults.
Our chronology take us, in the second millennium BC, into the
basin south of the Small Lake of Avigliana. Important archaeological
relics were unearthed from the peat trenches in the late nineteenth
century. Many of these relics were collected by Federico Sacco
(1864-1948) and are now in the collections of the Turin Museo
di Antichità. The piledwelling found in the peat
was inhabited from the
early Bronze Age to the
early Iron Age. Located
on an important transit
route and benefiting from
nearby mineral resources,
this settlement became the
centre of metallurgy in
ancient western Piedmont.
It would later became
specialized
in
the
94
Chiomonte,
Archaeological
Site and
Museum of La
Maddalena.
Chianocco,
Orrido caves.
Archaeology
Avigliana,
Little Lake.
Susa, shells Celtic.
Below:
Mompantero, Rock
carvings on the
slopes of Mount
Rocciamelone.
production of “Trana” (after a town south of Avigliana) swords and
axes.
A series of votive and cultural findings from the middle Bronze
Age were found in the area of Mount Rocciamelone, the “sacred
mountain”: an unused dagger blade on the Lake Malciaussia trail
(c. 1500 BC); rocks engraved with meanders and spirals (1500-900
BC) near Mompantero; Bronze-Age spiral engravings on a rock near
the trail to the village of Novalesa, while north Novalesa a landslide
covers rock dwellings with protohistoric traces and a gold mine that
was still active in historic times; a
late Bronze-Age bronze lance (c.900
BC) found near the Ca’ d’Asti
mountain hut; the Mompantero
sacred area with middle Iron-Age
rock-paintings of mythological
scenes (600-500 BC); and the rock
engravings of what appear to be
dancing soldiers along the trails
climbing Mount Rocciamelone
(500-200 BC), which continued
to evoke legends into the Christian
Age. And on the summit there is a
figure deriving from the Celtic god
of thunder, hurling thunderbolts
and stones and holding a flaming
sword, a figure which is believed
to have inspired the moder-day
traditional Dance of the Spadonari
[Swordsman] of Susa Valley.
95
1
The presence of Celtic communities is also documented in the
Maddalena di Chiomonte area. In spite of the landslide, this
area was never abandoned. There are traces of a continuous human
presence up to c. 350 BC, when a small wayfaring group stopped
there temporarily and buried a woman in an isolated tomb with a
rich complement of bronze objects.
Today a series of long-forgotten archaeological sites and monumental
buildings from the Roman Era located between Borgone di Susa
and the outskirts of Turin (Augusta Taurinorum) are given new
importance in the tale of the Romanized valley. Known in Roman
times as the Procuratorial Province of the “Alpes Cottiae”, the valley
served primarily as a transit route across the Cottian Alps (the
section of the Alps south-west of Cuneo). A system of residential
and productive settlements developed along the Gaul road between
Avigliana and Rivoli.
Outstanding among them is the Almese residential building in
Grange di Milanere on
the south-west slopes
of Mount Musiné. The
complex is Piedmont’s
most significant suburban
residential building from
the Roman epoch. The
villa covers an area of more
than 3000 square meters
(32,300 square feet). It
has a sweeping view of the
valley looking out over its
massive containment wall.
Restoration work began on
the complex in 1979.
The rural settlement in
Rivoli-Tuc Perosa is more
recent, dating from the
first century AD, as is
the nearby section of the
Roma road, built in the
late second and early third
centuries AD. The broad
Gaul road was a public
Roman route that passed
96
Susa, Night view
of the Roman
aqueduct and the
arch of Augustus
(first century BC. Third century AD.)
Below: Susa, Detail
of the frieze of the
arch of Augustus.
Archaeology
1
Almese, Roman
age settlement,
I-III sec. A.D.
through Turin to connect the Padana
Plain to Narbonne in Transalpine
Gaul across the Montgenèvre or “Mons
Matronae”.
A 100-metres stretch of roadway was
discovered almost entirely intact. It is
6.4 meters (21 feet) wide, bordered by
a kerb of large stones, and constructed
with great precision. The roadway is
made of large flat, stream-polished stones with occasional horizontal
stone slabs cemented in a clayey-silt matrix and laid over a thick
substrate of pressed gravel, sand and crushed stone.
The Roman religious area known as the Mohamed of Borgone
is also believed to date to the second and third century AD. It is
an aedicula carved into the rock, and there is some dispute as to
whether it is dedicated to the god Silvanus or to Jupiter Dolichenus.
The rural settlement in Verné di Rosta dates back to the period
between the first and the fifth century AD. The structures were
built on a slight rise near an oxbow of the Dora river in the first
century AD. They were discovered in 1990 and comprise the ruins
of two separate buildings. In all probability they had been twostorey structures with a ground-floor service area and an upper floor
97
with living quarters. The two buildings were separated by an openair courtyard. The building located to the east was abandoned in
the second or third century, the one to the west was used into the
fifth century. The walls are made of split stone and smaller stones
cemented with lime mortar. Painted stucco pieces were found
among the debris of the crumbled buildings.
The rustic villa of Caselette, excavated between 1973 and 1984, also
dates back to the Imperial age (first to the third or fourth century
AD). The quadrangular complex covers some 3000 square meters
(32,3000 square feet) between the Malpensata and Forchetto
farms on the south-eastern slopes of Mount Musiné. It includes
buildings and open spaces. The residential areas are located uphill
from the villa, while below it there were spaces for production
or utility purpose, perhaps set around a large open-air courtyard.
The walls have been reburied in order to protect them from the
elements. It appears that the complex went through alternating
98
To the left:
Borgone Susa, the
“Mohamed”. Altar
dedicated to the
god Silvanus, II-III
century A.D.
Rosta, in the area of
Verna, Lodging, I-V
sec. A.D.
Caselette,
Roman age
settlement,
I-IV sec. A.D.
99
Archaeology
phases of economic development and decline. Signs of additions and
embellishments are juxtaposed with evidence of meagre attempts to
shore up and otherwise stave off decoration of the structures.
The Truc Perosa site reflects the vicissitudes of the final centuries of
the Roman Empire in the Dora river valley. This period witnessed
the gradual abandonment of the Roman road in favour of alternative
routes. An extreme consequences was the establishment of a
Langobard cemetery (some thirty graves dating back to the seventh
and eighth centuries) on the completely abandoned roadbed. The
system of villas and farms built at the western outskirts of Turin
along the huge valley-bottom road would suffer from the military
and political up-heavals of late antiquity and the early Medieval
period and begin to disintegrate.
More fortunate was the defensive system built in the fourth and
fifth centuries across the entire arc of the Alps, comprising the
emplacement of small military outposts at strategically narrow
points in the valleys. It was inherited by the Goths and later the
Byzantines. It was restored by the Langobards, and only changed
its function under the Franks, who would use the small forts as
customhouses to collect payment for passage.
1
100
2
Architecture
Susa, Cathedral
of San Giusto,
bell tower (XI
century).
The historical importance of the Susa valley derives from the continuous
interchange that occurred there between settled and transiting cultures.
The valley has been one of the main routes to the alpine passes since
prehistoric times. Its history today is marked by relics from the Roman
epoch and by the influxes arriving along the Turin-Lyons section of the
Via Francigena in the Middle Ages.
The widespread presence of religious structures, including the Novalesa
abbey, the abbey of San Michele, Sant’Antonio di Ranverso, the provostry of Oulx the cathedral of San Giusto di Susa and the Certosa of
Montebenedetto, Banda (Villar Focchiardo) and Losa (Gravere), is direct consequence of the passage of pilgrims along the routes leading to
the alpine passes.
Another important aspect regarding the cultural identity of the valley is
the presence over the centuries, until the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, of
two different dominions: the Dauphiné and the House of Savoy, who
dominated the High and the Low Valley, respectively. The cultural bond
between the High Valley and the dauphine is evidenced in its artistic
expressions (pulpits, portals, ceilings and wooden retables) and architectural types (especially evident in the bell towers), which show a close
kinship with transalpine regions of Briançon, Queyras and Embrun.
Susa, Saint
Saturnino (XII
century).
101
The Medieval churches are most significant anthropic signs in the area
after the first millennium. Together with the dense network of monasteries, they give the valley its religious character. The construction of the
abbey of San Michele on Mount Pirchiriano began in 983-987 and continued into the eleventh century, with a radical rebuilding of the main
church in the twelfth century. The tenth and eleventh century unearthed
in the monastic compound at Novalesa are to be consider the first instances of Romanesque architecture in Susa valley. The major monasteries were flanked by lesser known religious communities that nevertheless
played an important role in the overall religious panorama of the valley,
such as the church of Santa Maria di Celle on Mount Caprasio initiated
in the eleventh century. The church still has a noteworthy crypt and a
bell tower that has undergone partial transformation over the years. The
list of Bishop Milone (1172) includes foundation buildings believed to
have been constructed as a result of the reformist initiatives of Countess
Adelaide di Susa, among which we cite San Didero, Villar Focchiardo,
Chianocco, San Giorio, Bruzolo, Bussoleno, Mattie, Frassinere, Giaglione, Chiomonte and Exilles.
The early examples of Romanesque architecture in Susa Valley show the
influence of Lombard styles. Existing structures include San Giusto di
Susa with is noteworthy bell tower; San Saturnino in Susa (object of
recent restoration work); San Rocco in Condove; San Desiderio in San
102
Buttigliera
Alta, Abbey of
St. Antonio of
Ranverso.
103
Architecture
Celle, Parish
of St. Maria
Assunta.
The crypt
(XII century).
Didero, whose Romanesque elements are quite visible in the external
perimeter walls and in the base of the bell tower; San Pancrazio in Vaie,
whose conservation to a sanctuary in the second half of the eighteenth
century almost completely obliterated its Romanesque origins, which
still survive in the bell tower and the subjacent apse; San Giorgio in
San Giorio (bell tower); Sant’Ippolito in Bardonecchia (bell tower); and
Sant’Antonino Martire in Sant’Antonino di Susa, whose bell tower and
three recently apses shed light on the allure of a building which still conserves much of its original form. The bell tower, often the only surviving elements of these architectural complexes, are generally characterized
by corner strip pilasters, brick hanging-arch stringcourses and saw-tooth
decorative elements framing the rectangular embrasures, or two or threelight mullioned windows with crutch columns, often framed by a double
arched lintel.
The close of the tenth century also witnessed the gradual rebirth of the
Novalesa abbey, which had been abandoned for almost a century after
the Saracens incursions. The first instances of new life are documented
when the Bishop of Ventimiglia was called in the mid-eleventh century
to consecrate four chapels. In the twelfth century, thanks partially to the
good relations with the lay and ecclesiastic powers of Maurienne and Savoy, significant rebuilding efforts were undertaken, reflecting the strong
desire of the priory to achieve independence from the mother-house in
Breme.
This was the context for the establishment of the presbytery of san
Lorenzo, also known as “Plebs Martyrum”. In the eleventh century it
formed the original nucleus for the provostry of Oulx. It is believed that
the year 1065 marked the official recognition of the institution under the
order of saint Augustine
by Bishop Cuniberto of
Turin.
The beginning of the
thirteenth century witnessed the election of
Stefano, formerly the
prior of Novalesa, as the
abbot of San Giusto.
The prior subsequently
gained greater religious
and administrative autonomy from Breme. In
the fourteenth century,
2
Oulx, in the ward
of Savoulx, Parish
Church of San
Gregorio Magno.
although Novalesa did not became an abbey but remained a priory, its
autonomy grew due to its relations with the Savoy dynasty.
The central role played by the provostry of Oulx, which did not seem
to have religious competitors in the High Valley starting in the midthirteenth century, explains the increase in parishes and chaplianships
its territory.
The beginning of the fourteenth century was also an important moment
for San Giusto in Susa. The abbey building was in poor condition and
required urgent repairs. Work on the choir and transept, entrusted to
non-local artisans, was documented in 1320. In the same period work
was begun in Susa on the church of San Francesco (the portal in the
main façade is dated to c. 1320). The period from 1320 to 1340 witnessed an expansion of the so-called “Lombard Gothic” style, promoted
by the mendicant orders engaged in the rebuilding and restoration of
older convents, cathedrals and monastic churches.
The proliferation of parish churches and the construction of numerous
oratories, even in the medium-to-high mountains, punctuated the entire
second half of the fifteenth century and the first four decades of the sixteenth. Savoulx became a parish in 1451, Millaures in 1477, Melezet and
Desertes in 1487, Fenils in 1490, Châtheau beaulard in 1493 and Bousson in 1505. These buildings are still strongly represented by their bell
towers, whose typological and architectural characteristics are common
throughout the High Valley and into a part of France that had formerly
belonged to the Dauphiné.
104
105
Architecture
Avigliana, Parish
of St. Giovanni.
The mid-fifteenth century saw new important work done on the
monastery of San Giusto in Susa promoted by Cardinal Guillaume
d’Estouteville, administrator of the monastery (1453). He documents
these works in his testament with special reference to those carried out on
the bell tower. The upper was completed by replacing the roof and the
belfry. The newly constructed octagonal spire was complemented with
four smaller spires with fantastic animals and rain in terracotta, rarely
seen in the High Valley after Sant’Antonio di Ranverso and San Pietro
and San Giovanni in Avigliana. Once again, as happened with work on
the choir and transept using crafts men from Casale, the decorations
at the top of the bell tower were entrusted to non-local artisans. The
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries witnessed the administration of the Novalesa priory pass from Vincenzo Aschieri – the last prior elected by the
community – to external administrators chosen by the Savoy with approval from the Pope. Later the practice was widely adopted of having
“perpetual commendators”.
The transfer of the capital of the Duchy of Turin (1563) following the
Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559) marked an initial alteration of the
Savoyard territorial equilibria, one that would also have influence in
the mountain zones, although the
would remain rather unstable until
the Treaty of Utrecht (1713).
The provostry of Oulx, with the
churches of San Pietro and San Lorenzo, suffered heavy consequences
over the centuries from the conflict
between Catholics and Protestants,
especially in 1562-67, when its important library was destroyed. In the
seventeenth century it was reborn as
an institution and its structures were
rebuilt. In 1614 the hospital and the
church of San Pietro were restored,
and in 1663, under the rule of René
de Birague, the presbytery was rebuilt.
The devotional traditions in the Low
Valley were strengthened by the construction of new religious buildings.
Significant examples include the
construction in 1620 of the Sanctu-
2
Avigliana,
Sanctuary of
the lakes.
ary of the Madonna of the Lakes in Avigliana based on designs by the
ducal architect and engineer Nicolò Ramelli, who took as his model the
work of Ascanio Vitozzi (1539-1615). In the High Valley, still under
French dominion (until 1713), the old parish churches were restored
and remodeled and their interiors were completely redecorated.
Starting towards the end of the sixteenth century, the Novalesa priory
underwent a rapid and progressive decline resulting in the extinction of
the Benedictines who were replaced in 1646 by the Cistercians. At the
end of the seventeenth century, the great disrepair, it was taken under the
direct control of the Savoy. Victor Amadeus II commissioned Antonio
Bertola, the military engineer and architect of the court, to renovate the
church. His work ended up being a bona fide reconstruction (1709),
which almost completely obliterated the characteristics of the original
building. Bertola himself – he was in Susa to direct the construction
of the brunette fortress – would design the main altar of San Giusto in
1724, which documents state was completed by 1728. It is also interesting to note in the various cases discussed here that military engineers
and architects of the court found themselves involved indiscriminately in
fortification-building or religious projects.
The end of the seventeenth century in the Low Valley was characterized
by restoration and transformation work. Examples include the significant
work on the parish church of Sant’Antonio Martire in Sant’Antonino di
Susa in 1698, and the construction of new buildings such as Santo Stefano in Rivera (a ward of Almese) towards the end of the 1680s. It was
a parish church with simple and straightforward architecture that was in
line with the trends in the capital.
With the Treaty of Utrecht, the Valle di Susa passed fully into the Savoyard dominion, which generated new impulse for religious construc106
107
Architecture
Bardonecchia,
Parish of
Sant’Ippolito.
tion, often producing architectural works of notable quality. The more
significant examples include Santa Maria Assunta, a parish church in
Villar Focchiardo (1721-31). The complex, designed by Filippo Juvarra,
inherited architectural models present in Piedmont in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries.
Another important example is the church of san Giovanni Vincenzo
in Sant’Ambrogio (1759-60), designed by Bernardo Antonio Vittone
(1705-70) and built after the prior Romanesque church was demolished,
leaving traces of the original building only in the massive bell tower. The
building had a centralized, poly-lobate plan inspired by the main themes
of the architecture of Vittone.
Contemporaneously in the High Valley the provostry of Oulx was slowly
weakening and would reach its nadir in 1748 when the last provost, Jean
Baptiste d’Orlié de Saint-Innocent, was named first Bishop of Pinerolo.
Upon his death in 1794, the lands of the provostry, formerly under the
ecclesiastic jurisdiction of the Diocese of Pinerolo, would be transferred
to the Diocese of Susa, instituted in 1772. The remains of the church,
today dedicated to the Sacred Heart, and its annexes would be rebuilt at
the end of the nineteenth century. In 1895 they were transferred to the
Salesians. The church still houses the late-seventeenth-century sepulchral
monument of René de Birague, an important figure in the rebirth of the
religious institution.
Starting in the mid-eighteenth century, the political and social events
associated with the Novalesa monastery brought about its decline, which
continued until the suppression under Napoleon. It reopened in 1821
but closed its door definitively in 1855 following the enactment of the
Rattazzi Law outlawing the religious orders of the time. The
complex was drastically altered by subsequent transformation
work until the monastery was acquired
in 1973 by the province of Turin. The
archaeological
and
restoration work subsequently undertaken
has returned to us a
cultural treasure of in-
2
estimable value in the art and history of Susa valley.
The second half of the nineteenth century in Susa Valley was a period of
expansions, restorations and new constructions. The modern-day church
of Sant’Ipoolito in Bardonecchia was built in 1826-29 under the coordination of its parson Father Giuseppe Maria Vachet, after the old and deteriorated Romanesque church of Santa Maria was demolished: its only
remaining trace is the now somewhat under-valorized bell tower. Again
in the High Valley an analogous fate would befall the parish church of
Santa Maria Assunta in Oulx, demolished and partially rebuilt in 1861.
The cathedral of San Giusto would be “restored” in 1863-65 by Edoardo Arborio Mella. However, its Romanesque origins were almost completely obliterated by a Neo-Gothic restyling that still characterizes the
interior of the Susa cathedral today.
The 1880s were marked by growing efforts at conservation spearheaded
by the charismatic figure of Alfredo d’Andrade, one of the most representative personalities on both the regional and the national scenes.
The founding of the first conservation organizations (today the “Soprintendenze”) highlighted a significant turning point in restoration
work performed between the end of the nineteenth century and the
Second World War. Some of the most important restoration work was
done in the parish church of San Giovanni Battista in Salbertrand with
D’Andrade directly supervising the architectural work in 1905, while
Giovanni Vacchetta would be commissioned in 1908 to do the restoration work on the frescoes inside the building.
The twentieth century in Susa valley offers no particularly meaningful
examples of new sacred architecture other than perhaps the parish church
of Claviere (1936), the (transformed) work of Giuseppe Momo, and the
parish church of Sestriere (1937), designed by Vittorio Bonadè Bottino.
108
To the left:
Sestriere, Parish
of St. Edoardo.
Claviere, Parish
Church.
Architecture
Colonia IX Maggio, now the Medail Olympic Village
in Bardonecchia
Constructed in 1937-39 and named
“Colonia IX Maggio”, the building complex
was designed by Gino Levi Montalcini and
Paolo Ceresa.
Characterized by rigorously Rationalistinspired architectural lines, the complex
was built at a time when the Fascist
regime was in full economic crisis. The
plans and the building materials chosen
evoke the image of an architecture
saddled by the need to build a low
cost. The works thus draw their power
principally from the expressivity of their
form and composition.
The complex included a pavilion for the
Young Women Fascist and one for the
Balilla (the Fascist Youth Organization for
Boys), an infirmary, two entrance pavilions
and two main buildings arranged in such
a way as to create a large courtyard open
towards the south.
After being abandoned as a training
camp, the complex entered a long period
of disuse, followed by upgrade work that
was not always cognizant of the value of
the original architecture. In the culturally
and economically transformed climate
of the 1980s, work was undertaken that
did not acknowledge the historical and
architectural value of the efforts of Levi
Montalcini, and brought about a series of
radical transformations.
This initial phase of work was followed
by additional work in the 1990s which
was even more invasive and completely
distorted the original conception. To make
matters worse, all was left uncompleted,
which exposed the structures to serious
deterioration.
The recent renovation has transformed
the complex into an Olympic Village that
will host the athletes who take part in the
snowboard, skeleton, freestyle and luge
competitions on the 2006 Turin Winter
Olympic Games.
Bardonecchia,
“Colonia IX Maggio”
historic view.
109
2
110
Fortified Architecture and Landscapes of Power
Fortifications embody a deep bond between the architectural work and its
surrounding territory, both geomorphically (topography, hydrography,
vegetation and availability of construction materials) and geopolitically
(relations to parent or other institutions, relationship to central power,
position with respect to borders or roads). Fortified structures must respond to rigid functional criteria, but their forms are also strongly symbolic and political expressions.
The Dora Riparia river valley is particularly interesting in this regard. A
diverse group of political institutions corresponding to the varying political geography of this alpine region have exercised power there. Although
our tour of this sites must, for the sake of convenience, follow a topographic sequence, it is worthwhile to first outline the historical periods of
the various fortifications and the processes that brought them into being,
transformed them, determined the ebb and flow of their fortunes, and in
some cases led to their dismantlement. Our itinerary thus begins with a
focus on two territorial themes, and the examines a number of architectural works in some detail.
The Landscapes of Power
Exilles,
The fortress.
Fortifications and borders
If we travel the Susa Valley from the plain of Turin all the way to the
mountain passes we remain in the same political territory. But we must
remember that the placement of the current border on the alpine divide
dates back only to the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Most of the architecture
we may visit today was built prior to the eighteenth century and thus corresponds to the different geographical frameworks that established their
borders within the valley and which are indelibly and formatively intermixed with the historical roots of the various local identities.
From ancient times to the early Middle Ages the mouth of the Dora valley
on the Turin plain represented a fundamental borderline. The base of the
first foothills marked the division between Romanized cisalpine Gaul and
the kingdom of Marcus Julius Cottius (who gave his name to the Cottian
Alps). It also demarcated the political spheres of the Lombards and the
Franks, the former centred on the strong-holds on the plain, and the latter occupying the mountainsides on both sides of the Alpine crest. Of the
111
3
clausae longobardorum, i.e., the continuous fortified line established by the
Lombards starting in the middle seventeenth century to mark out their
territory and discourage any expansionist impulses of the Carolingians, all
that remains are controversial traces; the fervor of scholars has yet to find
adequate archaeological evidence.
A second border area – one more deeply rooted and longer lasting – lies
on the plateau immediately above Susa. This was the point of contact
between two alpine principalities: the Dukes of Savoy, who controlled
the Mount Cenis pass, and the Dauphiné, a competing “mountain-pass
state” consolidated on both sides of the Montgenèvre pass. In moderns
times the borderline between the two alpine principalities became the
boundary between the Savoy Duchy and the Kingdom of France, and
was never seriously contested until the fateful year 1713, when the Dukes
acquired the royal crown and – within the context of a general redefinition of the European political map, rather than resulting from any specific
local ambitions – the boundary was shifted to the alpine divide. This shift
had a profound effect on the fortified architecture in the High Valley,
whose former supply lines now suddenly lay across the new frontier, cut
off by a new military front line.
Fortifications and powers
The fortification builders were numerous and diverse. While a small
number of major powers embodied a “state” interest (in the broad sense
of the term, including the fourteenth-century principalities), many Medieval fortresses represented local ecclesiastic or lay powers working to safeguard family interest or discontinuously distributed lands and properties.
Chianocco,
Fortressdwelling.
112
113
Fortified Architecture
Fortress-abodes, tower-abodes and castles played a major role in the organization of rural and village life. The fortified “garb” of merlons, embrasures and turrets was often a means fort asserting real or desired jurisdictional prerogatives through a bellicose linguistic code. It prolonged the
chivalrous world into the full modern era, without any significant adaptation of the defenses to modern military siege techniques.
In contrast to the proliferation of fortified structures in the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries – the apogee of political and military expansion,
not only on the part of the two main ruling dynasties, but also by many
families – the modern era witnessed a significant decline in the number
of fortified garrisons (essentially reduced to Avigliana at the mouth of the
valley, and Susa and Exilles on either side of the borderline), associated
with an enormous deployment of state resources.
If the modest rural Medieval fortifications may be consider an expression
of the territory they affect (for example, by adapting to its morphology
and using the construction materials it offers), conversely the modern fortifications aspired to redesign the territory, “bending” it even physically to
the needs of the absolute state. In Avigliana in 1630 an attempt was made
to close off the valley by means of a system of canals designed to flood on
command the plain in front of the fort. In Susa, the Brunetta fortress is
substantially built “as a negative”, i.e., excavated into the rock. The summit at Exilles was reworked a number of times in an alternating sequence
of construction and total demolition, and has to be interpreted within
the framework of a “global fortification” of the territory from the valley
floor to the ridge-tops and the adjacent valleys. The heavy fortification of
the territory that began in the eighteenth century – with the provisioning
of the garrisons, the extraction of construction materials, the building of
roads suitable for the transport of cannons, the use of forest resources on
the work-sites and for producing power, and the deviation redesigned and
militarized mountain landscape.
Works in the late nineteenth century (a period of tensions between Italy,
then in the Triple Alliance, and France, who found themselves on different sides of the European playing field prior to the First World War) and
the so-called Vallo Alpino, the Italian line of defense built between 1931
and 1943 (and the premise for the bungled attack on France by Fascist
regime in 1940), further reconfigured not only the alpine confines (take
for example the Chaberton fortress or the Mount Cenis defenses) but
also reworked the entire valley to suit logistics purposes (military roads,
depots and barracks). Beneath the mantle of a re-naturalization following
the recent depopulation of the alpine areas, the traces remain of the heavily anthropicised territory with its earthworks, stonework and reinforced
3
concrete structures, whose abandonment is one of the causes of disturbance to the alpine hydrogeology.
Fortified Structures
The castles of the central authorities
Susa and Avigliana have boasted an unchallenged architectural preeminence throughout the Medieval and the modern eras. The reasons for
this reside in their public roles. Having inherited the Arduinic institutions
from the early Medieval imperial powers, these two sites were centers of
political life before they became strategic military posts for the slow establishment of the Savoyard reign on the Italian side of the Alps. In particular, the castle of Susa still remains identified with Countess Adelaide, the
last descendent of the Arduinic Marquise of Turin, who took Oddo of
Savoy (1021-59) as her third husband and was the first to unify the two
sides of Mount Cenis.
The city walls of Roman “Segusio” (modern-day Susa) were built in the
first decade of the fourth century as part of new strategy of territorial control by an empire that was now in clear difficulty, and were maintained
throughout the Middle Ages. The first fortifications on the plateau of the
castrum (a turreted curtain) are attributed to the late Imperial Age or perhaps to Theodoric. The site fell early on (at the end of the eleventh century) into the compass of the Savoyard political sphere and became the seat
of the main subalpine administrative centre. The current main building
of the castle, although radically remodeled in modern times, still contains
significant portions of the medieval palace walls (dated, on the basis of
Susa, Castle.
114
115
Fortified Architecture
Avigliana,
Castle.
the two-light mullioned windows, to the eleventh century)
and still conserves the late medieval access route to the city
with its fourteenth century
defensive system.
The Avigliana castle remains
in ruins, much as it was left
by the French after they systematically demolished it in
1690, but recent archaeological investigations have shed
new light on the site. Avigliana’s importance derived
from its role as a curtis regia,
i.e., a political, social and economic centre controlled by
public functionaries (the marquise of Turin) succeeded by
the Counts of Savoy, and opposed by the Bishop of Turin. The office of the Savoyard castellans, i.e.,
the territorial administrators of the Savoy bureaucracy, is documented beginning in 1176, and Avigliana became the frontier post for Savoyard ambitions directed towards the area around Turin. A significant portion of
the taxes collected by the castellans was used to finance fortress-building,
while in the fourteenth century the Avigliana castrum, now well within
the Savoyard realm and no longer subject to any military pressure, acquired markedly representational and residential characteristics. Excavations have unearthed the base of the square tower, flanked by a residential
wing terminating in a false cylindrical turret, whose ruins still dominate
the eastern spur.
The administration of the Dauphiné valley was also organized on the
basis of castellans. The thirteenth century castle of Exilles is the main
fortified settlement in the High Valley. The numerous demolitions and
reconstructions over the history of this fort have wiped out virtually traces of the medieval structure. However, the historical architecture of the
castle is well documented in the iconography. A cylindrical main tower
dominated the complex’s inner enclosures, which was surrounded by a
lower courtyard (basse cour) and its wall. There was then a third and outer
defensive ring enclosing the entire complex.
The architecture of the central powers also included the tower of Oulx,
3
a building used for receptions and the administration of justice, probably built after the dauphine had
passed over to King Philippe VI of France (1349).
The architecture is most interesting: traces of the
fireplace, windows and seats, all skillfully sculpted
in stone, are recognizable in the main section of the
tower. Restoration work on the tower is scheduled
to begin soon.
The fortresses of the seignories
Springing up during the thirteenth century alongside the long-instituted castellan system, new fortified constructions began to dot the landscape. Usually modest in size but made with robust atone walls,
these structures were erected by feudal lords in the
valley settlements or on the family’s lands. Those that acquired the much
covered-jurisdictional powers may be defined as castra, while the others
were given the more generic appellation of domus. But the architectural
distinctions are less evident that might be suggested by this institutional
distinction.
The structures are characterized by the typical features shared by fortresses
(generally a crenellated wall and towers with embrasures), but are generally to be interpreted as residences or centers of local family power co-
Oulx, the
Tower
Dauphin.
San Giorio of
Susa, Castle.
116
117
Fortified Architecture
Mattie, in
the ward of
Menolzio.
ordinated by the patrician
authorities.
A recurrent type may be
observed among the numerous currently existing
buildings. It is a robust,
stone-walled,
habitable
building with a square or
rectangular floor plan and
consisting of three floors
topped with a crenellated
roof. The bottom floor
was for storage and tools,
the first floor was for receiving and entertaining
guests, and the upper floor comprised the private living quarters. Examples include the outlying house-forts of Mattie (prior to the end of the
thirteenth century) and Meana (smaller and probably built shortly afterwards), or their counterparts in town, Villar Focchiardo (rebuilt in
the 1340s) and San Didero, and lastly the fortified residential complex
of Chianocco, built at about the same time and subsequently enlarged a
number of times.
The settlement with the most notable architecture is San Giorio. It was
a villanova [new town] promoted by the Savoy family in1226; it later
became a fief of the Bertandi family, who sponsored ambitious territorial
reorganization projects. The castle is of particular interest. Its main tower
is probably the first cylindrical structure erected in the valley and has now
been attributed to transalpine Savoyard workmen, recruited by the powerful family in the second half of the thirteenth century. The family also
commissioned the construction of the chapel (1328), which contains one
of the most significant frescoed cycles of the early alpine fourteenth century.
Shifting our attention to the Dauphiné section of the valley, recent archaeological investigations have partially uncovered a large castle of the “De
Bardonisca” family above Borgovecchio of Bardonecchia. While hoping
that the excavation work will continue, we are currently able to observe
a quadrangular perimeter extending onto an artificial terrace defended
by turrets at the southern corners. Inside the enclosure, the open space
around the Tur d’Amun (the only element still standing) was progressively filled in with structures for entertaining guests, communal facilities
and storehouse, all of which were abandoned in the eighteenth century.
3
Bardonecchia,
Tur d’Amun.
Condove-Caprie,
Castle of the
Green Count.
The site is now accessible following the restoration project sponsored by
the Commune and represents a first step towards the goal of creating an
archaeological park in the Bardonecchia area. Another castle, the Bramafam, which came under the direct control of the Dauphiné in the early
fourteenth century, has probably completely disappeared. The site was
demolished in 1574 and rebuilt as a military fort in the late nineteenth
century to control access to the Fréjus rail tunnel (18719.
The ecclesiastical powers also exercised control over their lands with the
construction of fortified settlements, where the administrative functionaries generally resided. There is the palazzo of Sant’Ambrogio, seat of the
castellan appointed by the abbey of San Michele della Chiusa, and the
two castles granted by the Savoys to the monastery of San Giusto di Susa:
San Mauro Almese (of which the bell tower of the old provostry, fortified in the early fourteenth century, still stands), and the castle of Caprie,
much of whose walls, built in stages in the thirteenth and fourteenth cen118
Collective fortifications
In addition to the city walls of Susa from the late-Imperial period, maintained until they clearly became obsolete in the early seventeenth century,
there are a number of Medieval walls of a certain architectural relevance
still existing in the valley.
Sant’Ambrogio and Bussoleno, important markets and transit points,
were encircled by walls in the second half of the fourteenth century, an
endemically insecure period. The most extensive urban fortifications are
found in Avigliana. There was a thriving commercial and metallurgical centre at the foot of the patrician castrum. The vitality of this centre
is evidenced by the single thirteenth and fourteenth century residential
unit around which a protective wall with monumental gates was built in
successive stages. A common characteristic of the defensive installations
discussed here are the circular or semi-circular towers, some of which are
still standing, punctuating a curtain wall.
The fortifications of Molare di Villar Dora built by the Savoys are also
be classified as collective defences, even through the curtain walls cited
by historical sources are no longer recognizable. However, the cylindrical tower built by Master Bertrando in 1289-90 still stands to mark the
landscape. The tower contains habitable spaces with fireplaces, embrasures and vaulted ceilings. The tower of Buttigliera (the “Bicocca”) shows
similar characteristics that it was used strictly for surveillance and control.
Fort the Dauphiné-controlled section of the valley there is the compact
fortified village of exiles, whose internal defences comprise the massive
walls of the dwellings themselves.
“Modern-style” fortifications
The creation of modern nation states and developments in military techniques brought a radical transformation of fortified structures both in
terms of their form and their relationship with the surrounding territory.
As mentioned above, the main repercussions are observable on a large
scale (roadways, ditches, trenches on the mountainsides), while the structures were demolished and dismantled in the eighteenth century.
In the decades after the re-establishment of the Savoyard Duchy (after
the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis of 1559), renewed attention was focused
on the Susa pass, which had been considered an inert border between the
Savoy and the Kingdom of France since the middle fourteenth century. A
general fortification plan was undertaken by Gabrio Busca and Giacomo
119
Fortified Architecture
turies, are still standing. This castle has been dubbed, for no apparent
reason, “the castle of the Green Count”.
3
Soldati starting in 1592
during the religious wars,
but no significant architectural traces remain.
The Santa Maria fort
north of Susa and the
Gravere territorial barricade (comprising the
forts of San Francesco,
Monmorone,
Rocco,
Molaro and Rochetta),
after having proved ineffective in the Franch
campaigns of 1629, 1630
and 1690, were demilitarized in favor of a stronghold on a decidedly larger scale on the Brunetta
plateau. All that is left of
the large site, where work
was begun by Antonio
Bertola before the Treaty
of Utrecht and completed only in the late eighteenth century, are traces
of the walls and the massive excavations into the rock, which could not be erased by the demolition work carried out during the Napoleonic occupation of the 1797-98.
Also on the French side, the massive fortification work carried out at Exilles, directed initially by Jean de Beins in the early seventeenth century
and then by Vauban between 1692 and 1708, can no longer be seen.
After ending up in Savoyard hands (1708), the fort was initially repaired,
but then substantially redesigned in light of the total reversal in defensive
logic imposed by the new state boundaries. But also the work done by
the Savoy (designed by Ignazio Bertola and Lorenzo Bernardino Pinto)
was dismantled in 1796-97. The current building dates back to the period of the Savoy restoration (plans by Giovanni Antonio Rana of 1818,
later joined by Antonio Francesco Olivero and Carlo Verani), with a first
substantial conclusion in the era of Carlo Alberto. Additional fortification
phases were carried out after the Savoy passed over to France (1860) and
in the 1870s and 1880s. Definitively abandoned after the Second World
120
Exilles, Fortress.
A view of the
exterior and the
courtyard of the
Knight.
Bardonecchia,
Ruins of
the fortress
Jafferau.
Twentieth-century architecture
As mentioned above, the vast majority of fortifications still existing date
from the 1880s to the period between the two wars. These structures,
substantially underground, are characterized by a wide use of tunnels linking massive steel-armoured reinforced concrete bunkers. The awareness
and conservation of these structures has been promoted by cultural associations concerned with conserving modern military heritage. Important
studies and enhancement initiatives have already brought attention to the
areas showing the greatest wealth of these artifacts while we await a broader strategy for their conservation and valorization. Sites in this category
include the Chaberton fort (at an altitude of 3130 meters [10,270 feet] )
and the numerous works on Mount Cenis (some of which are now under
water after the construction of the new dam), which became French after
the Second World War. And lastly, we mentioned the fortified works
along the high military road from Salbertrand (the Fenils and Pramand
forts) to Jafferau (above Bardonecchia).
121
Fortified Architecture
war, the fort was purchased by the Region of Piedmont in 1978 and has
recently been outfitted with museum facilities and opened to the public.
Regarding “modern-style” fortifications, the largest and most precious –
because of their intrinsic fragility – must be considered the network of
trenches, roads and fortified outposts built on the Assietta ridge between
the Dora and the Chisone valleys, connecting to the stronghold at Exilles
and the massive Fenestrelle defences. Theatre of the epic Savoyard resistance of 1747, the earthen and stone trenches are still partially recognizable
and can be visited on foot, but a well-designed framework for protecting
and conserving them is urgently needed.
3
122
4
Figurative Arts
Novalesa, Abbey
of SS. Peter and
Andrew. Chapel
of St. Eldrado,
Pantocrator,
1096-97.
From the Eleventh to the Eighteenth Century
The artistic works from the Romanesque period in the Susa valley show
the influence, especially among its various monastic institutions, of Lombard style, albeit with significant exceptions. This may be seen in the
frescoes in the San Giusto baptistery in Susa, datable to the first quarter
of the eleventh century and portraying the Apostles Enthroned along with
the patrons who presumably ordered the work (Olderico Manfredi, on of
the founders of San Giusto, appears to be among them). Other evidence
is provided by the frescoed drapery in the chamber at the base of the bell
tower and the coeval frieze on the external south walls of the cathedral (c.
1020-30) discovered during recent restoration work. The same cultural
influences are seen, in spite of a wealth of refernces to the Austrian context, in the wall painting adorning the chapel of Sant’Eldrado in the Novalesa abbey commissioned in 1096-97 by the abbot Adraldo of Breme,
whose close association with Odilio of Cluny and Pier Damiani has been
pointed out.
If we shift our attention to stone sculptures and metal-work done shortly thereafter the horizons are broadened. Examples include the Zodiac
door of the abbey of san Michele sculpted in a workshop dominated by
Magister Nicolò (the workshop was also doing work for the Piacenza
and Ferrara cathedrals); the bronze door knockers made at about the
same time by a Lombard goldsmith (1120-30), formerly part of the
Cathedral treasure and now in the Museo della Madonna del Ponte in
Susa, the
Diocesan
Museum.
Lombard
goldsmith,
Picchiotti,
1130 ca.
123
Susa; Sant’Eldrado’s reliquary
box, now in the parish church
of Novalesa, attributed to a
twelfth-century
goldsmith
from the Meuse-Rhine area;
the marble altar sculpted for
the Benedictines of san Giusto by Peter of Lyons in the
early thirteenth century; and
the wooden statue of the Madonna del Ponte (twelfth century), in which distant narratives intermix, drawn from the paths of the Medieval pilgrims stretching
through Auvergne and all the way to Spain.
The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries stand out for a marked tendency
towards uniformity between the high and the low valley, brought about
by the unifying tastes of the Savoy Duchy, who rose to dominance in that
period. Frescoes done by Master Tommaso d’Acaja at San Pietro in Avigliana (1348-62) are exemplary in this regard. The artist has other works
in the Novalesa abbey done in the years 1360-70, when Rufino Bartolomei was the abbot. Giacomo Pitterio from Alessandria, whose hand we
recognise both on wooden tablets and in frescoes, was invited in the late
fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries to do works in Sant’Antonio di
Ranverso, in San Pietro in Avigliana, in the abbey of San Michele (see the
polyptych in the Galleria Sabauda in Turin), in the chapel of Our Lady of
Mercy in Plampinet (an outlying burg of Névache, in Vallée de la Clarée)
and in the chapel dedicated to Saint Martin in Le Monnetier-les-Bains.
The works of the Turinese artist Giacomo Jaquerio in the Susa Valley is
highly acclaimed. In the Antonine prefecture church of Sant’Antonio di
Ranverso there is his signature under the Virgin Mary Enthroned in the
presbytery. Later, working with other talents, he completed a number
of decorative campaigns, all of which are dated after 1406. Jaquerio was
asked to the Novalesa abbey by the prior Vincenzo Aschieri of Giaglione
to paint the polyptych on the main altar (see the surviving tablets of
Saint Peter saved from the waters and Saint Peter freed from prison at the
Galleria Sabauda). The presence of frescoes by the mysterious Master
of Lusernetta (from the nearby Val Pellice) on the arch of the chapel of
San Mauro in San Giusto in Susa, demonstrates the fortune of artists in
the area who adhered to the Jaquerio style. Evidence of the easy mobility
of internationally famous artists in the fifteenth century is provided by
Antoine de Lonhy from Toulouse. In 1462 the painter was in Barcelona,
124
Bussoleno, in the
ward of Foresto,
Chapel of the
Madonna delle
Grazie. A. de Lhony
(?), S. Catherine,
S. Barthomeow and
S. Peter Martyr, XV
century.
Chiomonte,
in the ward of
Ramats, Chapel
St. Andrea.
Master of Coignet
and Ramats,
Stories S. Andrew,
1480-90.
125
Figurative Arts
but the document containing this information also lists him as a resident
of Avigliana 8with its position close to Turin, the town was strategically
placed to serve both the Savoy court ant the powerful valley abbeys).
Traces of Antoine’s work are found in Foresto in the chapel of the Madonna delle Grazie, and at the Novalesa abbey, where he has frescoes in
the presbytery (the series of Benedictine Saints) and in the Provana chapel
(the series of Prophets, a popular theme at those times and one chosen earlier by prior Aschieri to decorate the wooden choir in the Novalesa abbey
which was later transferred to the Bardonecchia parish church. The work
was done by local wood-cravers, a different approach to that used for
the contemporary Losa altarpiece, which was made in a workshop in the
upper Rhine valley). De Lonhy needed helpers to make the late polyptych formerly at the abbey and now in the Novalesa parish church. By
the mid-fifteenth century the local itinerant workshops who could weave
together a broad variety of cultural themes had achieved no small fame.
Outstanding among these, also for the number of words still existing,
was the workshop of the Serra family, originally from Pinerolo (at the
mouth of the Chisone Valley, south of Susa Valley). Linking them to the
Susa Valley we have first of all a document from the 1466, according to
which Bartolomeo Serra was commissioned to do a painting for the main
altar in the Bussoleno parish church. However the map of their works is
extremely branched, including San Pietro of Avigliana (Stories of Saint
Joseph and Mary Magdalene), the chapel of San Sebastiano in San Giorio,
Christ’s arrival in Jerusalem frescoed on the entrance door to the baptis-
4
tery in San Giusto di
Susa, and the chapel
of Sant’Antonio Abate
in Jouvenceaux near
Sauze d’Oulx (the
stylistic elements of
the Serra’s work were
adopted by anonymous masters going by the pseudonyms of Master of Ramats and Master of Coignet). The francophilic orientation of the Susa Valley patron
remained firm all this, as is demonstrated by the frescoes in the chapel
of the Count at San Giorio (commissioned around 1328 by Lorenzetto
Bertrandi), by the wooden choir of San Giusto in Susa, sculpted somewhere around 1320, whose iconography is well suited to an illuminated
manuscript given the richness of drolleries on the panel of the baldachin,
and by the Rocciamelone triptych, donated in 1358 by Bonifacio Roero, a merchant from Asti residing in Susa who opted for a Paris-trined
goldsmith, while in the last decades of the fourteenth century he would
choose the Lombard silversmith Iohannes Bos de Zuinich for the processional cross of the Susa Cathedral Treasure. The front of the gothic
stone sculpture is very intricate. If the sculptor who did the capitals of the
presbytery of San Giusto (c.1320), believed to be franco-piedmontese,
demonstrates a good knowledge of contemporary developments in Lombard sculpture, the head of a bearded man, now in the Museo Diocesano,
datable to the period 1365-70, indicates the adopting of French styles
by the local artists, who had by then developed great professional capabilities. The alabaster altarpiece formerly on the altar of the chapel of
the Virgin in the Novalesa abbey (and now scattered among the Musei
Civici of Turin, private collections and the Museo Diocesano) however
is attributed to an English workshop in the second half of the fifteenth
century and is part of the works donated by the Provana family.
The Renaissance in the Susa valley finds one of its unifying elements in
the works of Defendente Ferrari of chivasso, and in any case within the
Defendentesque context. These range from the countless tablets kept
the churches of Avigliana – whne they did not end up in a large museums
following their loss to and recovery from the French government – to
works in San Michele abbey commissioned by the commendatory abbot
Urban of Miolans, the large polyptych of Ranverso donated in 1531 by
the community of Moncalieri in thanks for having escaped an epidemic,
and the Nativity originally in the Certosa of Banda and now in the capitular hall of San Giusto in Susa. Avigliana, with its workshops and stylistic
126
Susa, Cathedral
of San Giusto.
wooden choir
(XIV sec.).
127
Figurative Arts
Susa, Cathedral
of San Giusto.
Defendente
Ferrari, Nativity,
1511 a.c.
choices perceived as being at the forefront of aesthetic developments,
became a point of reference for the valley. After the death of Anoine de
Lonhy, the painter Giovanni Dideris of Avigliana would be called in
1508 to decorate the chapel of Sant’Antonio in the Salbertrand parish
church. On the other hand, the polyptych done by Jacopino de Mottis
in 1491 (now in the Susa cathedral, after passing through the Certosa of
Banda, which got it from the Certosa of Pavia, and it may have been in
the Certosa of Mombracco before that) was not commissioned by Susa
Valley patrons and thus does not constitute an example of the success of
Leonardesque Lombard painting. Contemporaneously, in the still relatively unexplored context of sixteenth century stone sculpture, the workshop of the Roude family of Melezet (an outlying burg of Bardonecchia)
rose to pre-eminence in the high valley. Matteo Roude was commissioned
in 1512 to do the portal for San Giovanni Battista in Salbertrand and
another in 1514 for the
parish church dedicated
to Our Lady of Snow in
Bousson. One of his presumed descendents, Jean
Roude Gros du Mellesè,
crafted the baptismal
font in the parish church
of Sant’Ippolito in Bardonecchia in 1573. As
had happened with
stone-carvers, wood-carvers under the jurisdiction of the provostry
of Oulx witnessed the
birth and success of local
talents, who should be
viewed within the context of the rich cultural
exchanges with the immediate transalpine areas. Outstanding for their
quality were the works of
the so-called Master of
Saint Gregory’s Mass,
who took his name from
the altarpiece in the
4
parish church of Château Beaulard, much of
which has ended up being purloined.
In the realm of painting, from the late Mannerist period to the end of the eighteenth century, the major patrons directed their attention
to the artists of the Savoy court, even in the
areas that were politically part of the cisalpine
Dauphiné. The critics have long placed the
aesthetics taste of Cardinal Maurizio of Savoy,
commendatory abbot, in the right light. He
summoned to the sanctuary of the Madonna
of the Lakes of Avigliana the Saint Maurice by
Guido Reni in an imitation of Caravaggio’s
style, an altarpiece by Antonio Maria Viani,
and a Saint Francis in adoration of the Crucifix attributed to Carlo Vacca, a Caravaggesque
painter from Saluzzo. Other works attributed
to the patronage of the commendatory abbot
include the altarpieces by Viani from Cremona which were brought to
the San Michele abbey around 1622. More recent was the rediscovery of
the good fortunes of the painters working for Carlo Emanuele I of Savoy
in the Dora Riparia valley. In Susa, Guglielmo Caccia called “il Moncalvo” was commissioned to do three altarpieces, one in San Giusto (The
Holy Family with Saint John, Saint Anne and Saint Joachim), one in San
Francesco (Madonna and Child with Saint Francis), and the third for the
Madonna del Ponte (Coronation of the Virgin with Saints Roch and Sebastian), in a period when the city was the object of particular attention by
the royal family who were engaged in strengthening their fortifications.
Following their father’s success in the city, Orsola Maddalena Caccia
would be commissioned c. 1649 by the Confraternity of San Carlo to
do the prestigious painting of Saint Carlo Borromeo in adoration of the
Name of Jesus. The choices in Oulx for the altars of the provostry church
were surprising. Bernardo Orlando from Milan, the keeper of paintings
and drawings for Carlo Emanuele I, was commissioned in the years that
the institution was led by members of the Birago family (of Lombard
origins) to do two altarpieces, now located in the parish church (1630,
Madonna and Child with Saint Francis and Lawrence and Madonna of
the Rosary). But the orientation of the patrons in Oulx had already been
clearly manifested in 1626, when the altarpiece for the main altar for the
parish church of the Assunta was entrusted to Mario Zuccaro. The differentiation between the High Valley and the Low Valley became clearer
128
Susa, the Diocesan
Museum. Master
of the Mass of
St. Gregory, Lady
of Vazon, early
sixteenth century.
Bardonecchia,
in the ward of
Melezet, Parish
of St. Antonio
Abate. High altar,
1698.
129
Figurative Arts
in the second half of the seventeenth century. In Avigliana the reference
point remained the aesthetic tastes of the Savoy court, as may be seen in
the two paintings by Charles Dauphin for the sanctuary of the Madonna
of the Lakes (episodes from the Life of Saint Francis and Saint Anthony of
Padua), an orientation also echoed by the Fornelli family of Bussoleno,
who had Bartolomeo Caravoglia do the altarpiece for the altar of the
Penitent Souls. On the other hand, in the area under the provostry the
works of the Dufour family were preferred, not so much those of Pierre
or Laurent (prolific portraitists engaged in the works for the royal family
in Turin), but rather those of the branch of the workshop in Maurienne
under the supervision of Gabriel (the relations between the two branches
of the workshop were constant, as testified by the models that Pierre
and Laurent would send to Gabriel and that would remain “in production” up to the early eighteenth century). Exemplary are the altarpieces
done by Gabriel Dufour for the parish church of Rochemolles, commissioned by the provost Faure (Madonna and Child with Saints Peter and
Paul of 1698 and Madonna of the Rosary with Saint Dominic the Abbot
and Catherine of Siena of 1703). A completely local alternative to the
more prestigious Dufour was the work of the priest and painter, Jacques
Roux. He worked in the second half of the seventeenth century on what
might be considered “minor” works (pieces for lateral altars, Apostoles).
A particular exception to that opinion is found in the altarpiece on the
main altar of the Novalesa parish church which Sebastiano Taricco of
Cherasco was commissioned to do, along with the prestigious retable,
by the commendatory abbot, Giovanni Battista Isnardi of Caraglio (the
4
Bardonecchia,
in the ward of
Rochemolles, Parish
of St. Pietro.
G. Dufour, Madonna
del Rosario 1703.
piece on the main altar of the parish church of Sant’Antonio also falls
into this orbit, perhaps not far from the important works done in 1698).
While the painters of the Savoy court held sway in their field of art, the
strong Franco-Piedmontese sculptural tradition appears to have held firm
into the early eighteenth century, al least in the high valley. The 1630s
and 1640s are dominated by the personality of Jean Clappier of Bessans
(see especially in the Museum of Sacred Art in Giaglione, the statues of
Saint Sebastian, 1630 and Saint Stephen, 1642, showing uncommon qualities of naturalism while never abandoning a classical composure). The
130
131
Figurative Arts
Sauze d’Oulx,
Parish of St.
Giovanni
Battista. Chaffrey
Faure, Altar,
1703-04.
creative output of Etienne
Fodéré (also from Bessans
near Maurienne) in the first
decade of the eighteenth
century is represented by the
works in the cathedral of San
Giusto (statues of Saints Peter
and Paul on the altar of the
Saint Cross) and by those in
the Giaglione parish church
(Saint Catherine, Lucy, Peter
and Paul and a Saint Bishop).
The fame of the wood-carver
Jacques Jesse of Embrun, who
contributed to the retable on
the main altar in the Oulx parish church in the years 1670-76, and whose
stylistic elements may be recognised in a wide array of analogous works
of the time (and also in the abundance of carved portals), found proud
competition from the local workshop of the Faure family of Thures (Jean
Faure did the retable of the main altar in the parish church of Salbertrand
in 1667, while Chaffrey Faure did that in the Sauze d’Oulx parish church
in 1703-04). Among the rare but important exceptions to the rule, we
should not forget the seventeenth century Annunciation in the Susa cathedral attributed to a sculptor from Valsesia, and the retable on the altar
of the Rosary in the parish church of Ferrera Cenisio dating to 1683. The
eighteenth century, starting in the low and middle portions of the valley,
opened the doors to the most celebrated sculptors working for the Savoy
court: from Carlo Giuseppe Plura (documented in the works in Chiusa di
San Michele and the Madonna del Ponte di Susa), to Giuseppe Antonio
Riva and Ignazio Perruca (as seen in the reliquary bust of Saint Francis of
Sales from the Cathedral Treasures in the Museo Diocesano), and Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo (Our Lady of Sorrows of the Confraternity of San
Carlo in Susa), in contrast to the work from the workshop of the mysterious Master of Bousson. Regarding eighteenth century painting, in the
absence of local artist who could compete in terms of quality, the patrons
turned once again to the Turin market, choosing initially the works of
Michele Antonio Milocco, who was particularly tried to royal patronage,
as is well demonstrated by events associated with the churches of Pinerolo
(see the paintings done for Villar Focchiardo, Sant’Ambrogio and Bruzolo), and also by the works of Vittorio Amedeo Rapous, especially the
Via Crucis (1783) in the parish church of Sant’Ambrogio.
4
132
5
Material Culture
Giaglione,
The traditional
branch.
Villar Focchiardo,
Quarry.
Socioeconomic History
In Susa Valley, history and geography have imposed socio-economic distinctions between the High Valley and the Low Valley. In the latter the
establishment of factories on the valley floor provided families with the
opportunity to supplement their incomes, which up to then had predominantly been based on agriculture. Farming was essentially carried
out on a subsistence level, with the exception of chestnuts, which fed
a voracious market in France for marrons glacés. The chestnut harvest
involved the whole family in the autumn and winter, and those who
possessed extensive chestnut groves (in Vaie, Villar Focchiardo, San Giorio, Mattie or Meana) hired abbacchiatori (literally, “knockers-down of
fruit”) to help with the harvest.
Industry arrived in the Low Susa valley in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The first to set up shop were textile manufacturers, such as
“I cotonifici Wild&Abbeg”, establishing themselves around Bussoleno,
Chianocco and Borgone Susa, benefiting from their proximity to the
Turin-Lyon railway, which has remained a bustling international link to
this day. The factories, still perfectly visible and in some case renovated
and used for other purposes, are notable for their large-windowed Art
Nouveau brick façades. Labour in the textile industry was predominantly
female; the men tended to work as transporters, in other types of factories, or as stone-cutters. Many of them worked in the stone quarries found
mainly on the slopes above Borgone Susa, and between Villar Focchiardo and Bussoleno (where
some are still in operation).
The quarries initially were
run by families and owned
by the Commune, but with
the high demand for construction materials in Turin,
stone-cutter cooperatives
were soon founded, such as
SACCES (Società Anonima
Cavatori e Scalpellini [Corporation of Quarrymen and
Stone-Cutter]), to safeguard
133
and manage the work of the labourers. The oldest quarries include the
Fugera green marble quarry above
Bussoleno at an altitude of 1300 meters (4270 feet), which was opened
by the Savoys in the late eighteenth
century. Maps of the quarry along
with designs for a mill and waterpowered saw are found in the Turin State Archives. The gneiss quarries produced much of the material
used in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries for the kerbs and
paving stones in Turin’s Via Roma,
as well as for the cornices of the balconies on the Royal Palace.
The Second World War increased
the importance of the railroad and
many industries on the valley floor
were covered over to the construction
of weapons and munitions, such as the “Ferriere” of Buttigliera Alta and
the “Dinamitificio Nobel” of Avigliana. Industrialisation, on the other
hand, did not reach the High Susa Valley. Rather, in the early twentieth
century it became a favorite summer vacation spot of the Turinese elite.
And with the introduction of skiing, it became a fast-growing winter
resort area. The basic livelihood of the families in the High Valley was
essentially agriculture or livestock, managed within the mutual support
framework of “escartons” (from the French escartonnement system, by
which expenses and tasks that were beyond the means of a single Commune were shared out among neighboring communities. By extension,
“escarton” came to mean the community of inhabitants of the same valley). On 29 May 1343, the Dauphin Humbert II, together with eighteen
representatives from the municipalities in the western Alps, signed the
Charter of Freedoms that recognized the right to self-rule to the mountain
communities, granting all of them the title of “freemen and burghers”.
The High Susa Valley was part of the escarton of Oulx, with the exception of Sestriere, which was in that of the Valle del Chisone. Independence led the communities to form labour associations, such as the
Livestock Raisers Consortia in Salbertrand, but also to share traditions
and dialects, as well as architectural styles, which differed greatly from
those in the Low Valley. With the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 the escar134
Vaie, Quarry.
Oulx, in the ward
of Puy Beaulard.
Blockhaus
example of
construction.
Alpine Architecture: from Traditional Homes
to “Total Ski” Stations
The layout of towns and the design of residential structures in Susa Valley are the result of two factors: the demands of agriculture and livestock
grazing, and the role of the valley as a transit route. The Turin-Lyons
section of the historic Via Francigena splits into two branches at Susa,
one going up to the Mount Cenis pass, and the other crossing the Alps
at Montgenèvre. Important agricultural and commercial centres grew up
along the route which are still characterized by dense building arrangement and with narrow side streets intersecting the main street at right
angles. Examples of such urban layout schemes include Sant’Ambrogio,
Chiusa di San Michele, Vaie, Sant’Antonino, San Giorio, Bussoleno, Exilles and Salbertrand. The settlements outside of the control of fortified
structures (castles or walls) preferred naturally protected sites on high
plateaus near roads. The choice of position was dictated both by defensive needs, and by the need to exploit level ground for agriculture. The
traditional dwellings generally
had to have a place to keep
hay, firewood and provisions,
stalls for livestock and habitable spaces for the family. The
structures varied in terms of
function, altitude (and thus
how it was outfitted for the
seasonal cycles), construction
materials and arrangement of
the spaces. The semi-sunken
stall was a space often shared
by people and their livestock.
135
Material Culture
tons were dissolved and the High Valley became part of the kingdom of
Savoy, thus separated politically, but not culturally, from France. When
skiing was introduced and caught on in the early 1900s, it had a significant impact on the economies of the mountain towns. Hotels were built,
ski lift were installed, and great sums were invested by the municipalities
to build houses and condominiums to lodge the tourists.
Thus the history of the Susa Valley contains two general trends: the
weakening of the agricultural economy and the progressive exodus from
the mountain villages towards the industrialized lower valley; and the
rapid and progressive expansion of a seasonal economy based on tourism
and snow sports.
5
People from different
families would gather
there in the warmth
generated by the livestock to swap news and
stories. The ever-present
hayloft and for the roof
beams. The roof were
covered either in wooden or stone shingles.
The intense urbanization of the valley floor
after the Second World
War and the progressive
depopulation of the mountainsides left most of the traditional dwellings
abandoned. Restoration work on these dwellings has only begun recently
to restore them to their original form.
After the “discovery” of the summertime Alps by the first hiking enthusiasts, a second wave came in the winter season, attracted by the growing
popularity of skiing. The Norwegian sport was introduced in Italy by
the Swiss engineer, Adolfo Kind, precisely in Bardonecchia. And it was
there on the Colomion slopes that the first ski jumping competition was
held in 1908. The first ski resorts soon sprang up and gave a boost to an
economy that is still flourishing in the High Valley. The advent of winter
sports quickly caused a reorientation of the economy towards the construction of hotels and ski lifts, and especially the building of villas and
condominiums to lodge the Turinese elite who had became skiing enthusiasts. During the period of Fascism, the new mountain tourism led
to the creation of summer camps for children and a growing popularity
of skiing among the general public, which would increase dramatically
during the boom years of the 1960s and 1970s.
With the birth of mountain tourism and the vacationer culture, alpine
architecture was strongly influenced by the stereotypical and picturesque conception of the mountains held by city dwellers. This sort of
“reinvention” of the Alps by the city reinterpreted the Swiss chalet in an
eclectic style, especially noticeable in the first villas built along Via Medail in Bardonecchia. These experimental styles were also applied to the
train station and to hydroelectric power plants such as the Castelpietra
plant in Susa, or to textile factories such as the “Bosio” woolen mills in
Sant’Ambrogio (which has now become the town hall).
While in the Low Valley in the post-war period the strong influence of
136
Sestriere,
Historic view.
Giaglione,
The headgear
of Spadonari.
Ecomuseums and Traditions
Ecomuseums are relatively recent phenomenon in Italy. They are the
expression of the local communities who want to reiterate their economic and social history. The ecomuseum and the
ethnographic museum are based on three fundamental elements: heritage, territory and community. Every
ecomuseum is thus the expression of the identity of
a territory and the complex web of relations between
a people and their environment. They are not simple
museum collections of farm implements or workshop
tools, but also include collections of “intangible” articles such linguistic heritage and the historical memory
of festivals and traditions, often conserved through the
oral tradition. There are a number of ecomuseums in
Susa Valley that vary as to topic and design, including
the “Dinamitificio Nobel” in Avigliana, an example of
137
Material Culture
city architecture was consolidated in functionally designed condominiums, often built near industries such as the “Anonima Bauchiero” in
Condove, or “Ferriera” in Buttigliera Alta, in the High Valley the mountain was conceived as a workshop for new urban designs and architectural styles. The interconnected “total ski” resorts of Sansicario, Sauze
d’Oulx and Bardonecchia, built just after the first ski lifts were installed
at Sportinia in 1906, were developed on the basis of this concept. Thus
in the years from 1950 to 1980 new architectures were developed, including the tower of the resort at Sauze d’Oulx, the Italsider resort at
Sansicario, which has now been remodeled for the 2006 Winter Olympics, the sledge lift to Lago Nero above Sauze (1946-47), and many others designed by grand architects such as Chevalley, Passanti, Gabetti and
Isola, Mollino, Casalegno, Ceresa and Severino, Levi Montalcini.
One of the more significant examples of the mountain as a site for “total skiing” is unquestionably Sestriere, “invented “ by the Agnelli family
with designs by Bonadè Bottino. This grand mountain vacationing spot
for the Turinese elite displaced a “temporary” settlement of farmers and
livestock raisers. The Hotels Principi di Piemonte, Torre and Duchi di
Aosta, as well as the Residence Concaneve in Sestriere – conceived as
extension of the mountain – also provided a model for ski resorts in Valle
d’Aosta. The conception of the alpine space as a workshop for architectural innovation is still current and has generated numerous exemplars,
including the new structures at Pragelato, Pinerolo, Sestriere and Torre
Pellice for the 2006 Turin Winter Olympic Games.
5
To the left:
Avigliana,
Dinamitificio
Nobel.
Bardonecchia,
Ethnographic
Museum.
industrial archaeology and memories of work, and “FERALP” (Museum
of Rail Transport across the Alps) in Bussoleno. Among the ethnographic museums we cite “Gente Antica” in Mocchie-Condove, “Vita Montana in Val Cenischia”, “Museo delle Terre di Confine” in Moncenisio,
the Ethnographic Museum of Bardonecchia, “Colombano Romean” in
Salbertrand based on the well-knownstory of the stone-cutter who dug
a tunnel 2000 meters long, in the area of Exilles and Chiomonte, in the
year 1500 for an underground aqueduct (which still exist), and “La Scuola dei Bigiardi” in Bruzolo, a rebuilt historical village school.
While the purpose of the ecomuseum is to inform and enrich historical
memory by means
of elements that
are
characteristic
of a past lifestyles,
many valley traditions are still quite
alive and well: the
patron-saint festivals with their traditional women’s costumes (Chiomonte,
Meana, San Giorio,
Chianocco, Mompantero, Novalesa,
138
Bussoleno,
The Museum
of Railway
Transport across
the Alps.
Material Culture
Venaus, Salbertrand and Exilles), the processions and the dances of the
Branc, Pouentu or Cantel, which are structures decorated with flowers,
ribbons and colored bows, or the Dance of the Swords in Giaglione, Venaus and San Giorio. The latter two are probably rooted in pagan rituals
associated with the new life of spring, rituals which were later absorbed
into the Christian tradition and still represent a very important occasion
for the communities who keep these traditions alive.
The Dance of the Swords
The Dance of the Swords of San Giorio,
Venaus and Giaglione is most likely a relic of
ancient pagan rituals. The costumes, passed
down to father to son, are characterized by
a brightly colored jacket decorated with ribbons and gold braids. However, ethnologists
and anthropologists are most interested in
the hats with their rich adornment of flowers
and multicolored ribbons associated with
the springtime rebirth of life. The four or six
swordsmen or “Spadonari”, dance to music
played by a band and receive commands in
dialect to create the characteristic figures
of their dance. The circular movements of
the upheld swords (sabrou in dialect) or
the stabbing of the ground are carried out
in a specifically choreographic manner as
a symbolic expression of the fertility of the
earth. The origin of the dance is still shrouded in mystery although its many variants are
now a recognized characteristic of the entire
Alpine arc.
San Giorio
of Susa,
The sword
dance.
139
5
140
6
The Natural Parks
Orsiera Rocciavré
Natural Park,
The Rocciamelone
Mount from
the valley of
the Arneirone
river (Colle delle
Finestre).
The Regional Natural Parks in Susa Valley include the Natural
Park of the Lakes of Avigliana, the Orsiera Rocciavré Natural
Park, the Special Nature Reserve of the Chianocco Ravine and
Holm Oak Habit, the Foresto Ravine Reserve, the Natural Park
of the Great Woods of Salbertrand and the Val Troncea Natural
Park (Sestriere and Sauze di Cesana).
They serve the multiple purposes of landscape conservation, environmental valorisation and promotion of knowledge of the natural
environment. They are joined by a number of Provincial Parks and
European Union Heritage Sites that protect specific biotopes and
natural habitats.
Its geographical position between the Alps to the north and the Po
river valley to the south, and its calcareous soils make the Susa Valley a veritable crossroads of plant species. The result is considerable
wealth of flora (over one thousand nine hundred species have been
catalogued, almost 20% of all Italian flora9, with highly heterogeneous plant communities, as well as a great variety of fauna.
The Natural Park of the Lakes of Avigliana, established in 1980,
is nestled among the morainic hills at the mouth of the Susa Valley. It contains three distinct biotopes represented by the two lakes,
the hills formed during the last two glaciations and the Mareschi
wetlands. The Great Lake and the Small Lake, generally grouped
Avigliana,
Lakes.
141
into the same biotope although they do exhibit some variations in
vegetation, are home to a number of autochthonous fish species, including the largemouth bass, the pike and the eel. A favourite spot
for birdwatchers, the park boasts numerous bird species, including
pochards, tufted ducks, teal, European widgeons, moor hens and
great crested grebes.
The self-guided or ranger-led activities are supported by trails, information centres, a fishing ecomuseum and orienteering maps, as
well as services for the differently-abled, including special access
trails, signs in Braille, audiocassettes and reserved picnic tables and
parking spaces. The park also offers features of anthropological interest, especially the peat bogs around the Small Lake, where prehistoric relics have been found dating back to the bronze Age (second
millennium BC).
The Orsiera Rocciavré Natural Park was established in 1980. It
covers an area of approximately 11,000 hectares (27,000 acres) extending into three valleys: the Susa Valley, the Sangone Valley and
Avigliana, flora
and fauna of the
Natural Park of
the Lakes.
Natural Park
Orsiera Rocciavré,
wildlife and natural
environments.
142
The Natural Parks
Villar Focchiardo,
Certosa di
Montebenedetto
(Orsiera Rocciavré
Natural Park).
the Chisone Valley, at an altitude ranging from 1000 to 2878 metres
(3280 to 9440 feet) above sea level. The landscape is characterised
by numerous glacial lakes and short, steep, water-sculpted ravines.
In the south-eastern section, in an area with greenish rock outcrops,
the morphology is harsh and wild with scarce, scrubby vegetation.
The park is home to large population of the mammals typical of
the alpine habitat such as the chamois, red deer and roe deer. There
are also many squirrels, marmots, common hares, snowshoe hares,
foxes, ermines, weasels, pine martens, stone-martens, badgers, and
for several years now, wolves.
Bird lovers will certainly not be disappointed by a visit to the park.
Over one hundred species of birds, including migratory and overwintering species, have been recorded. These include the typical
alpine species such as the black grouse, the rock ptarmigan and the
rock partridge. Among the raptors we cite the golden eagle, the
goshawk, the sparrow hawk and the buzzard.
The Orsiera Park does not only offer wildlife and beautiful landscapes. There are numerous archaeological traces of human presence dating all the way back to the Neolithic period. In the Susa
Valley, the park also encompasses the Certosa of Montebenedetto,
an example of Romanesque-Gothic architecture built between the
twelfth and fifteenth century. Unlike many other mountain zones
in Piedmont, much of this area has remained off the beaten track
of mass tourism, and still presents a nearly pristine natural habitat,
where human activity is limited to agriculture, silviculture and livestock raising.
The Special Nature Reserve of the Chianocco Ravine protects
the only site in Piedmont where the holm oak grows spontaneously,
and encompasses the deep ravine carved by the Prebèc torrent into
143
6
the carbonate rocks that
characterise this side of the
Susa Valley.
The entire raving offers interesting views of examples
of erosion and the massive
civil engineering works
put in place over the centuries to combat it. Visitors may explore the entire
ravine on a specially outfitted trail.
The Foresto Ravine Reserve provides habitat for
the prickly juniper. It covers an area of 200 hectares
(495 acres) in the Communes of Bussoleno and
Susa.
It encompasses the stupendous ravine carved by
Rocciamelone river with
its calcareous walls alternating with grassy areas. The park is principally of botanic interest with numerous and diverse species ranging from those of the
steppes to the typical Mediterranean flora.
For a number of years now visitors may explore the ravine on a specially outfitted, quite challenging, but beautiful trail.
The Natural Park of the Great Woods of Salbertrand lies on the
south side of the Susa valley extending from 1000 to 2600 metres
(3280 to 8530 feet) above sea level and encompassing the areas of
Chiomonte, Exilles, Oulx, Salbertrand and Sauze d’Oulx. Its purpose is to protect 700 hectares (1730 acres) of a mixed stand of
silver fir and Norway spruce that is unique in Piedmont.
The woods have significant biological value and include all of the
prized alpine conifer species. For its uncommon habitat qualities, a
part of the park is registered in the Italian national Book of Seed Forests for three species: Abies alba (Silver fir), Picea excelsa (Spruce fir)
and Pinus cembra (Arola pine). In the past these forests were used
to obtain the great straight-grain timbers used in civil and military
engineering works, such as the Arsenal of Turin, the basilica of Su144
Bussoleno,
Nature Reserve
Orrido di Foresto.
The exhaust of
the Giants.
The Natural
Park of
the Great
Woods of
Salbertrand,
in the area
of Serre
Blanche.
145
The Natural Parks
Groundhogs.
perga and the Venaria reale castle.
The great variety of environments and
plants species provides an ideal habitat
for broad range fauna. It is home to a
large number of raptors, including tawny owls, eagle owls, Tengmalm’s owls
and a golden eagle pair. Mammals include rabbits, squirrels, marmots and
many other small rodents, foxes and
weasels. There are also four species of ungulates: the chamois, the
wild boar, the red deer and the roe deer. Wolves have also returned
to the park with continuous sighting since 1997.
Without denying the main vocation to protect the environment,
the Park Board has always recognized the need to witness the historical memory of the Community. Since 1996, the Park Board
manages the Ecomuseum Colombano Romean work and tradition
in High Susa Valley, a route-discovery in time and space that aims
to preserve and enhance the rich heritage established by the traces
of that man’s work has left in the territory and in the traditions: old
buildings, tools used in everyday life and the body of knowledge
and practices intimately linked to them, represent an important record of material and immaterial culture of the past.
6
146
7
food and wine
Mattie,
View of the
vineyards.
The Susa Valley, for the particular climate that distinguishes it from
other alpine valleys, the presence of important communication routes
to France and to the plain, which made possible since ancient times a
continuous exchange of products and knowledge, offers today a great
range of products: wine, cheese, honey and sausages, chestnuts, fruit
and potatoes, declined by an intelligent and rich culinary tradition.
The cultivation and production were originally linked to an economy
of auto-consumption or sale in local markets, today the focus on this
type of product, valued and recognized by trademark, has allowed a
raise outside territory of Susa. Winegrowing has been practiced since
Roman times, and Chiomonte and Giaglione represent one of the
Piedmont’s most important alpine viticultural areas: and the most typical grape variety is native and unique in the world: Avanà. This ruby
red wine with aromas of fresh fruit, rarely vinified alone, today is coupled with other local red grapes, like Barbera and Becouet. The pomace
of Avanà are used to produce a precious spirit, the Eigovitto, whose production has always been very small, but very high quality. Since 1999,
the Consorzio di Tutela Vini D.O.C. promotes Valsusa D.O.C., and
protects the production of other types of varieties such as Dolcetto, Neretta of Cuneo, Freisa, which occupy eight hectares of vineyards through-
Foresto,
View of the
vineyards.
147
Chiomonte, Ramats.
Vineyards.
out the Susa area. Noteworthy is certainly the Chiomonte’s Vino del
Ghiaccio, a sweet dessert wine produced from grapes left on the vines
until the first winter frosts. Widespread in all municipalities of the
middle and lower valley, the apple has been able to preserve a variety of
local apple, genetically resistant to diseases and spread on the territory
of the indigenous cultivars: Carpendù, typical of higher altitudes, Dolce
of Bigiardi, Dolce of Chiomonte, Losa, Grigia di Giaglione, Maddalena,
Renetta di Giaglione, Rossa di Chiomonte, Rossa di Maffiotto, Rusnenta
di Coldimosso, Magnana, Cantin, Calvilla Rossa, Giacchetta and Susina,
these are typical of the middle valley.
Some areas of the Susa Valley are characterized by the chestnut production thanks to the excellent quality of fruit, chestnuts,
whose cultivation of native ecotypes including Vaie, Villar Focchiardo, Bruzolo, San Giorio
di Susa, Mattie and Meana. For
the organoleptic characteristics
valuable to a good size and the
mild flavor, Brown Valsusa recognized PGI since 2007, is suitable both for fresh consumption, both for the production of
148
Chestnuts.
149
food and wine
Potatoes and
cheese, among
the typical
products Susa.
artisan confectionery
“marron glacé”.
The Susa Valley is
now known for the
delicacy of its potatoes
in particular those
grown in high mountains, where ripening
is slow and does not
require pesticides: the
organoleptic characteristics acquired at
this altitude makes
them much tastier
than the plain. Among the landraces grown, it has the Piatlina di Cesana, and widespread in the valley, from the bur potatoes, peel so fine
that you do not need peeling. The paste varies from yellow to white depending on the variety grown, but also violet an ancient typical variety.
Generally, the dough of good consistency and is resistant to cooking
without flaking is used in many recipes and traditional dishes, such
as cajettes. These qualities, however, corresponds to a low production,
four times lower than that of plain potatoes: the difficulty of mechanization to the slopes and collect forces to sow by hand. The potatoes
are in production throughout the valley, but especially valuable are in
Sauze d’Oulx, Cesana Torinese, the Ramats Chiomonte of Mocchie (Condove) and Novalesa. The primary role in the economy of Alpine valleys,
the source of income and consumption has been traditionally covered
by the production of cheese and cow and goat milk. The Valle di Susa
has a varied and diversified production, where the mountain cheeses
7
Chiomonte,
Vineyards.
are characterized by the elevation of the pastures and the seasoning
for the intensity of flavors and aromas: the plaisentif, also known as
the cheese of the violet, the red rind cheese, for the treatment of surface water and salt; the murianeng, toma of large pasture, produced
by the union’s milk in the morning to the evening milking, the toma
del lait brusc, even in this valley and is
characterized by an acidification of up
to 48 hours, is deprived of the fat for the
production of butter, another product
such as the widespread seirass, or ricotta.
Worthy of note are the typical products
of slaughter swine, processed according
to traditional recipes. Holds the record
of excellence is the only ham cured in
Piedmont, the ham of the Susa Valley,
derived from the most prized part of the
thigh bone and the first salt, has a more
circular and compact than regular ham.
150
Susa Valley,
Prosciuttello.
Gusto Val Susa e Val Sangone is a journey of rediscovery of the Susa and Sangone Valleys through festivals and fairs
that over time have been able to enhance
and develop the traditional products.
In each season the communes organised
festivals, tastings, food stands, exhibitions of agricultural markets, vegetable
and craft, food and wine but also educational activities, competitions, product
quality, for protect and promote typical
local products.
Some festivals have an ancient origin,
such as the Fiera del Grand Escarton at
Oulx, dating back to 1453, and the Festival of Chestnuts that has its roots since
1938. Many of the events have been
created in recent decades to enhance the
cultivation of agricultural products, such
as apples, at Caprie, chestnuts, at San
Giorio, mountain potatoes at Mocchie.
Other are related to the culinary traditions of the community of the Susa Valley, such as stuffed onions at Almese,
the cakes made with corn flour, between
St. Ambrogio and Chiusa San Michele,
the fine pastries at Avigliana, traditional
canestrelli at Vaie, but also bread baked
in the oven at Chianocco and the traditional polenta at Bussoleno.
The varied heritage of traditional dairy is
valued for decades by the Toma Cheese
Fair, at Condove, and the Cheese Festival
in Sauze d’Oulx, while the rich production of honey is supported by Bruzolo and
regulated by the association of producers.
Many products also affected by the mark
DE.C. such as potatoes of Sauze d’Oulx,
or small berries and fragrant biscuits of
Rubiana, but also by the mark Products
of the Susa Valley to ensure the quality and origin of local products. Wine
Competition “Valle di Susa” in Borgone
di Susa allows to know and appreciate
the wine production of the valley, whose
tradition rooted since Roman times.
Gusto Val Susa e Val Sangone is now
an important network of wine and gastronomy events, which allows you to
rediscover the authentic flavors as an
expression of culture and identity of
unique territories such as Susa and Sangone Valleys.
Vaie,
Canestrello
Fair.
151
food and wine
Itineraries of taste in the Susa Valley
7
Hive, in the
background,
Mount
Rocciamelone.
From the small round shape similar to that of the eponymous bread,
salami called Mica has a large and medium-grain pasta has the distinction of not being sacked but turned in rye flour and pepper. This
allows the crust spicy salami seasoned and preserved for a long time.
The wise use of herbs and berries on the slopes of the mountains Susa
for the preservation of meat is also present in the production of Viurun, typical of the territory of Bardonecchia: the beef sausage is made
Traditional sweets of the Susa Valley
Do not miss the culinary tradition of the
Susa Valley, the production of cakes and
cookies: the scallops and cookies, citrus
scent, received the recognition of typical
and, similar to the scallops of St. Giorio
cocoa and red wine, are still cooked at high
heat on the specific design plates.
A similar process is followed in the Upper Valley for gofri, delicious sweet and
savory variations in wafers. Cookies are
unmistakable Rubianesi, paste di meliga
of Sant’Ambrogio, and pan di meliga
Chiusa San Michele, Lose Golose, Pan
della Marchesa in dried fruit. Among the
152
most famous sweet you can not forget the
unmistakable fragrance of the famous and
inimitable Focaccia di Susa.
Vaie, the typical
canestrello.
153
food and wine
Bees at work.
from the leg is immersed
in mulled wine raw or
with addition of berries,
herbs and spices and then
seasoned. Herbs and berries of the mountain are
also the basis of many liqueurs and spirits including gentian and genepy. In
particular, it is also grown
in plots at high altitude in
order to have a significant
semi-industrial and handicraft production. If soaked in alcohol liquor produces a golden yellow
color with green highlights, but if distilled with the alcohol vapor in
saturated environment, produces a white liquor with an intense bouquet and delicate. The liqueur is made with gentian root macerated in
small pieces in alcohol or wine, to which is added after about 40 days
a sugar syrup. It is an excellent digestive but has several recipes for the
construction depending on the family tradition. Of particular value
is also the honey Susa, whose production has spread throughout the
valley but with different characteristics depending on the place of residence of the hives. Besides the wildflowers, unique characteristics, are
not uniform, varying according to the production area and the prevalence of different types of flowers, it also produces a fine rhododendron
honey, a small honey production of alpine flora, and especially in the
lower valley Chestnut honey taste persistent and determined.
7
Localities
Almese, 14, 97
Assietta, colle della, 121
Avigliana, 9, 93, 94, 97, 105, 113, 115,
119, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 134, 137,
141, 151
Baità (loc. di Vaie), 25, 93
Banda (loc. di Villar Focchiardo), 28,
101, 127
Bardonecchia, 66, 83, 102, 108, 117,
125, 127, 136, 137, 138, 153
Baroni (fraz. di Bussoleno), 35
Beaulard (fraz. di Oulx), 68
Borgone Susa, 26, 46, 96, 98, 133, 151
Bousson (fraz. di Cesana Torinese), 73,
76, 104, 127, 131
Bramafam (loc. di Bardonecchia), 85,
117
Bruzolo, 31, 33, 131, 138, 149, 151
Bussoleno, 35, 119, 125, 129, 133, 134,
135, 138, 151
Buttigliera Alta, 12, 14, 119, 134, 137
Campambiardo (fraz. di Caprie), 24
Campoasciutto (fraz. di Chianocco), 34
Campo del Carro (loc. di Meana), 48
Capoluogo (fraz. di Buttigliera Alta), 12
Caprie, 23, 24, 118, 151
Caselette, 16, 98
Celle, 24, 102
Cels (fraz. di Exilles), 51
Cesana Torinese, 66, 73, 74, 149, 150
Chaberton, monte, 73, 76, 113, 121
Chateau Beaulard (fraz. di Oulx), 69,
104, 128
Chianocco, 31, 33, 34, 46, 53, 93, 94,
117, 133, 138, 141, 144, 151
Chiomonte, 41, 48, 49, 138, 147, 148
Chiusa di San Michele, 19, 131, 135,
151, 152
Claviere, 73, 75
Condove, 23, 25, 102, 137, 151
Desertes (fraz. di Cesana Torinese), 73,
104
Dora Riparia, 15
appendix
index
Exilles, 63, 113, 115, 119, 120, 135
Fenils (fraz. di Cesana Torinese), 73, 104
Ferriera (fraz. di Buttigliera Alta), 12, 134
Finestre (delle), colle, 48
Foresto (fraz. di Bussoleno), 37, 42, 125,
141, 144
Frassinere (fraz. di Condove), 24
Giaconera (loc. di Villar Focchiardo), 27
Giaglione, 41, 44, 46, 130, 139, 147, 147
Grange di Milanere (loc. di Almese), 14,
97
Gravere, 41, 49, 101, 119
Jafferau (loc. di Bardonecchia), 121
Jouvenceaux (fraz. di Sauze d’Oulx), 71,
125
Laietto (fraz. di Condove), 24
Les Arnauds (fraz. di Bardonecchia), 87
Les Horres (loc. di Bardonecchia), 87
Losa (loc. di Gravere), 101
Lys, colle del, 9, 16
Maddalena (la), loc. di Chiomonte, 51,
93, 94, 96
Mattie, 31, 38, 117, 133, 149
Meana, 41, 48, 117, 133, 138, 149
Melezet (fraz. di Bardonecchia), 44, 89,
104, 126, 127
Menolzio (loc. di Mattie), 38
Millaures (fraz. di Bardonecchia), 85,
104, 126
Mocchie (fraz. di Condove), 24, 138,
150, 151
Mollare (fraz. di Gravere), 49
Mompantero, 53, 95, 138
Mompellato (fraz. di Rubiana), 16
Moncalieri, 126
Moncenisio, colle del, 41, 53, 55, 60, 61,
112, 113, 121, 135
Moncenisio, comune di, 59, 131, 138
Monginevro, colle del, 15, 46, 63, 73,
97, 112, 135
Montebenedetto (loc. di Villar Focchiardo), 19, 28, 101, 143
Musiné, monte, 17
Novalesa, 44, 46, 53, 56, 95, 101, 102,
105, 107, 123, 126, 129, 138, 150
155
Novaretto, 24
Oulme (loc. di Salbertrand), 66
Oulx, 15, 63, 66, 101, 103, 105, 107,
115, 127, 128, 131, 134
Peroldrado (fraz. di Caprie), 24
Pinerolo, 137
Pragelato, 137
Pra Lavin (loc. di Bardonecchia), 85
Puy Beaulard (fraz. di Oulx), 70
Ramats (fraz. di Chiomonte), 51, 126,
150
Ranverso (loc. di Buttigliera Alta), 9, 12,
101, 104, 124
Refornetto (fraz. di Gravere), 49
Rivera, 14, 106
Rivoli, 97
Rocciamelone, monte, 53, 95, 126
Rochemolles (fraz. di Bardonecchia), 85,
126, 129
Roland, cascina (loc. di Villar Focchiardo), 27
Rosta, 12, 14
Rubiana, 15, 151
Sacra di San Michele, 19, 21, 24, 101,
103, 123, 124, 126, 128
Salbertrand, 63, 65, 121, 127, 131, 134,
135, 138, 139, 141, 144
San Didero, 31, 102, 117
San Gillio, 17
San Giorio di Susa, 31, 32, 44, 46, 48,
102, 117, 125, 133, 135, 138, 139, 149,
151, 152
Sansicario (fraz. di Cesana Torinese), 137
San Mauro (loc. di Almese), 14, 118
San Valeriano (fraz. di Borgone Susa), 27
Sant’Ambrogio di Torino, 20, 106, 118,
131, 135, 136, 151, 152
Sant’Antonino di Susa, 26, 102, 106,
129, 135
Sauze di Cesana, 15, 73, 79
Sauze d’Oulx, 63, 71, 131, 137, 151
Savoulx (fraz. di Oulx), 70, 104, 126
Scala, della, colle, 87
Sestriere, 73, 79, 134, 137
Sportinia (loc. di Sauze d’Oulx), 137
Suffis (loc. di Meana di Susa), 48
Susa, 15, 41, 53, 93, 96, 101, 102, 103,
104, 107, 113, 114, 118, 119, 123, 124,
126, 127, 128, 131, 136
Thures (fraz. di Cesana Torinese), 73,
79, 131
156
Torre del Colle (loc. di Villar Dora), 14
Torre Pellice, 137
Torino, 93, 94, 99
Trinità (fraz. di Mompantero), 52
Truc Perosa (loc. di Rivoli), 93, 97, 99
Urbiano (loc. di Mompantero), 53
Vaie, 25, 93, 102, 133, 135, 149, 151,
152
Val della Torre, 16, 17
Venaus, 48, 55, 139
Verné (loc. di Rosta), 14, 93, 98
Villar Dora, 15, 119
Villar Focchiardo, 27, 33, 46, 106, 117,
131, 133, 149, 151
Viù, 16
Artist and architects
Andrade (d’), Alfredo, 12, 13, 21, 108
Arborio Mella, Edoardo, 43, 108
Beins, Jean de, 120
Bertea, Cesare, 12
Bertola, Antonio, 57, 106, 120
Bertola, Ignazio, 120
Boasso, Lauro Giorgio, 19
Bonadé Bottino, Vittorio, 81, 108
Bonzanigo, Giuseppe Maria, 131
Boschis, Giovanni, 14
Bos de Zuinich, Iohannes, 44, 126
Brino, Giovanni, 71
Busca, Gabrio, 119
Caccia, Guglielmo, vedi Moncalvo
Caccia, Orsola Maddalena, 44, 128
Campi, Giulio, 58
Canova, Antonio, 93
Caravaggio (il), Michelangelo Merisi detto, 14, 128
Caravoglia, Bartolomeo, 23, 37, 129
Ceresa, Paolo, 109
Clappier, Jean, 48, 56, 130
Clemente, Stefano Maria, 17
Crida, Giovanni Paolo, 9
Cuenot, François, 50
Dauphin, Charles, 14, 129
Dazzi, Arturo, 81
Del Bosco, Secondo, 21
Dideris, Giovanni, 127
Dufour, bottega dei, 69, 84, 90
Dufour, Gabriel, 85, 129
Dufour, Laurent, 129
Pinto, Lorenzo Bernardino, 120
Pitterio, Giacomo, 13, 123
Plura, Carlo Giuseppe, 130
Prunotto, Giovanni Tommaso, 48
Ramelli, Nicolò, 105
Rana, Giovanni Antonio, 120
Rapous, Vittorio Amedeo, 22, 131
Reffo, Enrico, 10
Reni, Guido, 14, 128
Riva, Giuseppe Antonio, 20, 131
Rosaz, Sebastien, 48
Roude Gros, Jean, 83, 127
Roude, Mathieu, 66, 77, 127
Roux, Jacques, 129
Ruas du Pont, François, 75
Rubens, scuola di, 58
Rubino, Edoardo, 81
Santus Rusca, Giovanni, 39
Serra, Bartolomeo, 71, 125
Serra, bottega dei, 13, 43, 47, 51, 84, 91,
125
Serra, Sebastiano, 71
Simon, Jean, 48
Soldati, Giacomo, 119
Stuardi, Giovanni Antonio, 54
Taricco, Sebastiano, 26, 58, 129
Vacca, Carlo, 14, 128
Vacchetta, Giovanni, 108
Van Baburen, Dirck, 59
Vauban, Sebastien le Prestre marchese di,
120
Veglio Turino, Elsa, 10
Verani, Agostino, 22, 120
Viani, Antonio Maria, 14, 21, 128
Vittone, Bernardo, 20, 24, 106
Willencourt, François Louis de, 37
Zuccaro, Mario, 67, 128
157
appendix
Dufour, Pierre, 129
Faure, bottega dei, 129
Faure, Chaffrey, 51, 65, 69, 71, 131
Faure, Jean, 65, 66, 131
Ferrari, Defendente, 10, 12, 21, 43, 126
Flandin, Bernard, 48
Fodéré, Etienne, 43, 130
Galliari, Bernardino, 13
Gentileschi, Orazio, 37
Giovenone, Gerolamo, 10
Godone, Emanuele, 55
Grillet, Joseph, 71
Jaquerio, Giacomo, 12, 57, 124
Jesse, Jacques, 51, 67, 70, 90, 131
Juvarra, Filippo, 106
Lanino, Bernardino, 23
Lard, Eymard, 50
Lemoyne, François, 59
Lonhy, Antoine de, 13, 38, 57, 58, 124
Levi Montalcini, Gino, 109
Levis, Giuseppe Augusto, 51
Maestro Bertrando, 119
Maestro di Bousson, 77, 131
Maestro del Coignet e della Ramats, 89,
126
Maestro della Messa di San Gregorio, 69,
127
Maestro di Lusernetta, 124
Maestro di San Giorio, 33
Maestro di San Vito, 10
Maestro di Santa Maria Maggiore, 49
Maestro di Savoulx, 126
Maestro di Tommaso d’Acaia, 13, 124
Magister Nicolò, 21, 123
Messina, Francesco, 81
Milander, Peter, 67
Milocco, Michele Antonio, 22, 32, 131
Molinari, Giovanni Domenico, 22
Mollino, Carlo, 71
Momo, Giuseppe, 75, 108
Moncalvo (il), Guglielmo Caccia detto,
43, 128
Morari, Giacinto, 24
Morgari, Luigi, 19, 22
Mottis, de Iacopino, 43, 127
Olivero, Antonio Francesco, 120
Orlando, Bernardo, 67, 128
Ourcellet (le), Antoine, 87
Panizza, Barnaba, 17
Perucca, Ignazio, 130
Pietro da Lione, 43, 124
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general information
Useful Addresses
Comunità Montana Valle Susa
e Val Sangone
Via Trattenero 16
10053 Bussoleno (TO)
tel. 0122/642800
fax: 0122/642850
e-mail: info@cmvss.it
sito: www.cmvss.it
ATL Turismo Torino e Provincia
IAT – Uffici turistici comunali
Avigliana
Ufficio Turismo del Comune
tel. 011/9769117
cultura.avigliana@reteunitaria.piemonte.it
Bardonecchia
p.za De Gasperi 1
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Piazza Vittorio Amedeo 3
Tel. 0122/89202
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Tel. 0122/878856
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160
Sauze d’Oulx
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Parco Naturale Orsiera Rocciavré e
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guide.parco.orsiera@ruparpiemonte.it
superficie: 11.154,08 ha
(Orsiera Rocciavré 10.952.74 ha; Orr.
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Parco Naturale del Gran Bosco di
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Soccorso: 118
Ospedali Civili:
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Susa: tel. 0122/621212
Carabinieri, stazioni di:
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Avigliana: tel. 011/9328133
Bardonecchia: tel. 0122/99004
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Cesana Torinese: tel. 0122/89595
Chiomonte: tel. 0122/54105
Condove: tel. 011/9643106
Sestriere: tel. 0122/76769
Susa: tel. 0122/622782
Access
A32 Torino - Bardonecchia - Fréjus:
uscite Avigliana, Almese, Borgone,
Chianocco, Susa, Oulx, Bardonecchia
SS. 24; SS. 25
Linea ferroviaria Torino - Bardonecchia,
stazioni di: Rosta, Avigliana,
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Autobus: linee SAPAV, GTT
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dal 16/09 al 30/06 sabato e domenica,
visite guidate alle ore 10, 11, 11.45.
Visite su prenotazione per gruppi nei
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Ingresso: a offerta
Accessibilità ai disabili: parzialmente
accessibile
Abbazia Sacra di San Michele
Via alla Sacra 14
10057 Sant’Ambrogio di Torino
Informazioni: Sacra di San Michele
Tel. 011/939130
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Orario di apertura: dal 16/03 al 15/10
feriali 9.30-12.30 / 14.30-18, festivi
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Certosa della Madonna della Losa
Borgata Losa
10050 Gravere (TO)
Informazioni: Comune di Gravere
Tel. 0122/622912
Orario di apertura: visitabile tutti
i giorni nei mesi di luglio e agosto,
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Certosa di Montebenedetto
Loc. Montebenedetto
10050 Villar Focchiardo (TO)
Informazioni: Parco Naturale Orsiera
Rocciavré
Tel. 0122/640069
Guide.parco.orsiera@ruparpiemonte.it
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Certosa di Banda
Loc. Banda
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Focchiardo, tel. 011/9645025
info@comune.villarfocchiardo.to.it
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Chiesa di San Pietro
10051 Avigliana (TO)
Informazioni: Parrocchia SS. Giovanni e
Pietro, tel. 011/9328300
Orario di apertura: giugno – ottobre
feriali 15-18; sabato 9-12 / 15-19.30;
161
appendix
Emergency Numbers
domenica 9-12 / 15-19.30
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Chiesa di San Giovanni
10051 Avigliana (TO)
Informazioni: Parrocchia SS. Giovanni e
Pietro, tel. 011/9328300
Orario di apertura: tutti i giorni 8-12 /
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Ingresso: gratuito
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Chiesa di Santa Maria Maggiore
10051 Avigliana (TO)
Informazioni: Centro Cult.Vita e Pace
Tel. 011/9313073
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Precettoria di Sant’Antonio di Ranverso
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Archaeological Sites and Museums
Museo Archeologico e sito neolitico
La Maddalena
Cascina la Maddalena
10050 Chiomonte (TO)
Informazioni: Comune di Chiomonte
Tel. 0122/54104
Orario di apertura: In periodo estivo:
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Ingresso: a pagamento
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Museo Laboratorio della Preistoria di Vaie
Via San Pancrazio 4
10050 Vaie (TO)
Informazioni: Museo laboratorio
tel. 339/8274420
info@museopreistoriavaie.it
Orario di apertura: In periodo estivo
martedì 10-12, sabato e domenica
162
15-17. Aperto su richiesta nei restanti
periodi dell’anno
Ingresso: gratuito, a pagamento per visite
guidate
Accessibilità ai disabili: non accessibile
Museo Preistorico della Dora Riparia
Piazza San Rocco 1
10050 Villar Dora (TO)
Informazioni: Comune di Villar Dora
Tel. 011/9351218
Orario di apertura: mercoledì
pomeriggio e sabato pomeriggio
Ingresso: gratuito
Accessibilità ai disabili: accessibile
Museo Archeologico
dell’Abbazia di Novalesa
Abbazia dei SS. Pietro e Andrea,
bgt. San Pietro 4
10050 Novalesa (TO)
Informazioni: Centro Culturale
Diocesano di Susa, tel. 0122/622640
museo.novalesa@culturalpe.it
Orari di apertura: dal 01/07 al 15/09
tutti i giorni escluso il giovedì, 9.3012.30 / 14.30-17.30; dal 16/09 al 30/06
sabato e domenica 9-12.30 / 14-16,
mercoledì e venerdì su prenotazione per
gruppi e scuole
Ingresso: gratuito
Accessibilità ai disabili: accessibile
Parco Archeologico della Tur d’Amun
Via Tur d’Amun
10052 Bardonecchia (TO)
Informazioni: Pro Loco Bardonecchia,
tel./fax 0122/902612
proloco_bardonecchia@tiscali.it
Orari di apertura: da metà luglio a fine
agosto domenica 15.30-18, su richiesta
nei restanti periodi dell’anno
Ingresso: a pagamento
Accessibilità ai disabili: non accessibile
System of the Diocesan Museum
and Chapels
Museo Diocesano di Arte Sacra di Susa
Via Mazzini 1
10059 Susa (TO)
Informazioni: Centro Culturale
Diocesano, tel. 0122/622640
museo@centroculturalediocesano.it
Museo di Arte Religiosa Alpina
p.tta del Carmine – fraz. Melezet
10052 Bardonecchia (TO)
Informazioni: Centro Culturale
Diocesano, tel. 0122/622640
museo@centroculturalediocesano.it
Orario di apertura: da metà luglio a fine
agosto sab-dom 15.30-18, aperto tutti i
giorni nella settimana di ferragosto; su
richiesta nei restanti periodi dell’anno
Ingresso: a pagamento
Accessibilità ai disabili: accessibile
Museo di Arte Religiosa Alpina
di Novalesa
Via Maestra 19
10050 Novalesa (TO)
Informazioni: Centro Culturale
Diocesano, tel. 0122/622640
museo@centroculturalediocesano.it
Orario di apertura: agosto, domenica
15.30-18, su richiesta nei restanti periodi
dell’anno
Ingresso: a pagamento
Accessibilità ai disabili: parzialmente
accessibile
Museo di Arte Religiosa Alpina di Giaglione
Bgt. Sant’Andrea 1
10050 Giaglione (TO)
Informazioni: Centro Culturale
Diocesano, tel. 0122/622640
museo@centroculturalediocesano.it
Orario di apertura: aperto su richiesta
Ingresso: a pagamento
Accessibilità ai disabili: non accessibile
Cappella di San Lorenzo detta “del Conte”
10050 San Giorio di Susa (TO)
Informazioni: Centro Culturale
Diocesano, tel. 0122/622640
museo@centroculturalediocesano.it
Orario di apertura: da aprile a ottobre
domenica 15.30-18.30; aperto su
richiesta in altri periodi dell’anno
Ingresso: a pagamento
Accessibilità ai disabili: non accessibile
Cappella di Sant’Andrea
Fraz. Ramats
10050 Chiomonte (TO)
Informazioni: Centro Culturale Dioc.,
tel. 0122/622640; 0122/54400
museo@centroculturalediocesano.it
Orario di apertura: agosto, domenica
15-18; su richiesta nei restanti periodi
dell’anno
Ingresso: a pagamento
Accessibilità ai disabili: accessibile
Cappelle di San Sisto, Notre Dame du
Coignet, SS. Andrea e Giacomo
10052 Bardonecchia
Informazioni: Centro Culturale
Diocesano, tel. 0122/622640
museo@centroculturalediocesano.it
Orario di apertura: da metà luglio a fine
agosto, domenica 15.30-18; su richiesta
da aprile a giugno e in settembre - ottobre
Ingresso: a pagamento
Accessibilità ai disabili: non accessibili
Ecomuseums and Ethnographic Museums
Dinamitificio Nobel
Viale Nobel
10051 Avigliana (TO)
tel. 011/9327447
info@dinamitificionobel.it
Informazioni: Comune di Avigliana,
Ufficio Cultura, Tel. 011/9769117
Orario di apertura: da ottobre a aprile
lun-ven 10-12 / 14-18; sab-dom 14-18;
da maggio a settembre: lun.-ven. 10-12 /
14-19; sab-dom 10.30-19
Ingresso: a pagamento
Accesso disabili: accessibile
Museo Civico Etnografico
Via Des Geneys 6
10052 Bardonecchia (TO)
Informazioni: Pro Loco Bardonecchia,
tel./fax 0122/902612
proloco_bardonecchia@tiscali.it
Orari di apertura: da metà luglio a fine
agosto, gio-dom 17.30-19. In altri giorni
e periodi dell’anno su prenotazione
Ingresso: a pagamento
Accessibilità ai disabili: non accessibile
Museo Etnografico e Mulino
frazione Rochemolles
163
appendix
Orario di apertura: dal 15 luglio al 15
settembre lun-sab 9.30-12 / 15.30-19;
domenica 15.30-19; dal 16 settembre
al 14 luglio sab-dom 14.30 / 18.30; su
richiesta in altri giorni
Ingresso: a pagamento
Accessibilità ai disabili: accessibile
10052 Bardonecchia (TO)
Informazioni: Pro Loco Bardonecchia,
tel./fax 0122/902612
Orari di apertura: da metà luglio a fine
agosto, lun-dom 14.30-18
Ingresso: a pagamento
Accessibilità ai disabili: non accessibile
FERALP Museo del trasporto ferroviario
attraverso le Alpi
Ex deposito locomotive FS, via Susa 2
10053 Bussoleno (TO)
Informazioni: Associazione FERALP
Team c/o Provincia di Torino
Tel. 011/6652653 – 313/8214343
info@feraplteam.com
Orari di apertura: l’ultimo sabato di ogni
mese, 10-12 e 15-17; su prenotazione in
altri giorni per comitive e scuole
Ingresso: gratuito
Accesso ai disabili: parzialmente
accessibile
Pinacoteca “G.A. Levis”
Via Vittorio Emanuele 75
10050 Chiomonte (TO)
Informazioni: Comune di Chiomonte
Tel. 0122/54104
info@comune.chiomonte.to.it
Orari di apertura: aperto su richiesta
Ingresso: gratuito
Accesso ai disabili: non accessibile
Museo Etnografico di Mocchie
“La Ghindana”
Via Roma, località Mocchie
10055 Condove (TO)
Informazioni: Associazione Turistica Pro
Loco di Condove
Tel. 011/9636701 – 329/0980880
Orario di apertura: nel periodo estivo
domenica 14-18, in altri giorni su
richiesta
Ingresso: gratuito
Accesso ai disabili: non accessibile
Ecomuseo Le Terre al Confine
Ex dopolavoro, via Trento
10050 Moncenisio (TO)
Informazioni: Comune di Moncenisio
Tel. / fax 0122/653222
Orario di apertura: nel periodo estivo
tutti i giorni dalle 9 alle 12 e dalle 14.30
alle 18. In altri periodi dell’anno su
richiesta per comitive e scuole
164
Ingresso: gratuito
Accesso ai disabili: parzialmente
accessibile
Museo Etnografico di vita montana
in Val Cenischia
Via Maestra
10050 Novalesa (TO)
Informazioni: Comune di Novalesa
Tel. 0122/653333
Orario di apertura: aperto su richiesta
tutto l’anno
Ingresso: a pagamento, ridotto per
scolaresche e gruppi con più di 8 persone
Accesso ai disabili: limitato al piano
terra; il primo piano è accessibile previo
avviso telefonico
Ecomuseo Colombano Romean
Via Fransouà Fontan 1
10050 Salbertrand (TO)
Informazioni: Parco Naturale Gran
Bosco di Salbertrand
Tel. 0122/854720
ecomuseo.salbertrand@ruparpiemonte.it
Orario di apertura: su prenotazione
durante tutto l’anno
Ingresso: a pagamento con visite guidate
Accesso ai disabili: parzialmente
accessibile
Museo della Resistenza e della
Deportazione
Piazza G. Bolaffi, 1
10059 Mompantero (TO)
Informazioni: Comune di Mompantero
Tel. 0122/622323
Orario di apertura: primo sabato di ogni
mese dalle 14 alle 17, gli altri giorno su
prenotazione
Ingresso: gratuito
Accesso ai disabili: parzialmente
accessibile
Communes
Almese
Superficie: 17,91 km2
Abitanti: 6.292, Altitudine: 364 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 011/9350201
Internet: www.comune.almese.to.it
Ufficio Turistico: IAT Avigliana
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
16/08 San Rocco – Malatrait
Avigliana
Superficie: 23,27 km2
Abitanti: 12.183, Altitudine: 383 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 011/9769111
Internet: www.comune.avigliana.to.it
Ufficio Turistico: IAT Avigliana
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
Giugno, Palio dei Borghi
24/06 San Giovanni Battista
26/07 Sant’Anna
Bardonecchia
Superficie: 132,31 km2
Abitanti: 3.195, Altitudine: 1312 m s.l.m.
Comune: 0122/909911
Internet: www.comune.bardonecchia.to.it
Ufficio Turistico: ATL Bardonecchia
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
17/01 Sant’Antonio abate – Melezet
29/06 San Pietro – Rochemolles
16/07 Processione al monte Tabor
10/08 San Lorenzo – Les Arnauds
13/08 Sant’Ippolito – Bardonecchia
30/11 Sant’Andrea – Millaures
Borgone Susa
Superficie: 5,01 km2
Abitanti: 2.372, Altitudine: 394 m s.l.m.
Comune: tel. 011/9645452
Internet: www.comune.borgonesusa.to.it
Ufficio Turistico: ATL Susa
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
06/12 San Nicola
14/04 San Valeriano
Maggio Borgonese
Giugno: Concorso Enologico Valle di Susa
02/08 Madonna degli Angeli
05/08 Madonna della Neve
16/08 San Rocco
Bruzolo
Superficie: 12,35 km2
Abitanti: 1.528, Altitudine: 455 m s.l.m.
Comune: tel. 011/9637220
Internet: www.comune.bruzolo.to.it
Ufficio Turistico: ATL Susa
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
24/06 San Giovanni Battista
Settembre: Tuttomiele
Bussoleno
Superficie: 37,38 km2
Abitanti: 6.597, Altitudine: 444 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 0122/49002
Internet: www.comune.bussoleno.to.it
Ufficio turistico: ATL Susa
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
17/01 falò di Sant’Antonio abate
Maggio: Bussolegno
15/08 Assunzione di Maria
Buttigliera Alta
Superficie: 8,25 km2
Abitanti: 6.574, Altitudine: 410 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 011/9329340
Internet: www.comune.buttiglieraalta.to.it
Ufficio turistico: IAT Avigliana
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
25/04 San Marco
Giugno: Paese in festa, una finestra sull’arte
22/09 San Maurizio
Caprie
Superficie: 16,35 km2
Abitanti: 2.115, Altitudine: 374 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 011/9632333
Internet: www.comune.caprie.to.it
Ufficio turistico: IAT Avigliana
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
16/07 Madonna del Carmine
26/07 Sant’Anna
15/08 Assunzione di Maria – Celle
16/08 San Rocco – Novaretto
Novembre: La mela e dintorni
Caselette
Superficie: 14,22 km2
Abitanti: 2.844, Altitudine: 450 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 011/9688216
Internet: www.comunecaselette.it
Ufficio turistico: IAT Avigliana
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
Gennaio: festa di Sant’Abaco
24/04 San Giorgio Martire
Cesana Torinese
Superficie: 121,30 km2
Abitanti: 1.041, Altitudine: 1354 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 0122/89114
Internet: www.comune.cesana.to.it
Ufficio turistico: ATL Cesana
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
24/06 San Giovanni Battista – Cesana
20/07 Santa Margherita – Desertes
22/07 Santa Maria Maddalena – Thures
05/08 Madonna della Neve – Bousson
28/08 San Giuliano – Fenils
165
appendix
08/09 Natività di Maria
Ottobre: Arte Artigianato e Musica
Chianocco
Superficie: 18.63 km2
Abitanti: 1.682, Altitudine: 550 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 0122/49734
Internet: www.comune.chianocco.to.it
Ufficio turistico: ATL Susa
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
29/06 San Pietro
Settembre: Pane e…
Chiomonte
Superficie: 26,66 km2
Abitanti: 977, Altitudine: 750 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 0122/54104
Internet: www.comune.chiomonte.to.it
Ufficio turistico: ATL Susa
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
20/01 San Sebastiano – Chiomonte
24/08 San Bartolomeo – Frais
30/11 Sant’Andrea – Ramats
08/12 Immacolata – Ramats
Chiusa di San Michele
Superficie: 6,03 km2
Abitanti: 1.687, Altitudine: 378 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 011/9643140
Internet: www.comune.
chiusadisanmichele.to.it
Ufficio turistico: IAT Avigliana
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
29/06 S. Pietro
Claviere
Superficie: 2,58 km2
Abitanti: 208, Altitudine: 1760 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 0122/878821
Internet: www.comune.claviere.to.it
Ufficio turistico: ATL Claviere
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
02/07 Visitazione di Maria
Condove
Superficie: 71,33 km2
Abitanti: 4.672, Altitudine: 376 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 011/9643102
Internet: www.comune.condove.to.it
Ufficio turistico: Ufficio Turistico
Comunale Condove
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
01/08 San Pietro in Vincoli
02/08 Madonna degli Angeli Collombardo
La domenica successiva a ferragosto:
Sagra della Patata – Mocchie
2a domenica di ottobre: Fiera della
166
Toma – Condove
Exilles
Superficie: 44,32 km2
Abitanti: 272, Altitudine: 870 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 0122/58301
Internet: www.comune.exilles.to.it
Ufficio turistico: ATL Susa
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
29/06 San Pietro
Giaglione
Superficie: 33,59 km2
Abitanti: 656, Altitudine: 755 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 0122/622386
Internet: www.comune.giaglione.to.it
Ufficio turistico: ATL Susa
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
22/01 San Vincenzo, Danza delle Spade,
costumi tradizionali
Gravere
Superficie: 18,71 km2
Abitanti: 738, Altitudine: 821 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 0122/622912
Internet: www.comune.gravere.to.it
Ufficio turistico: ATL Susa
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
08/09 Natività di Maria
04/12 Santa Barbara
Mattie
Superficie: 27,72 km2
Abitanti: 749, Altitudine: 730 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 0122/38124
Internet: www.comune.mattie.to.it
Ufficio turistico: ATL Susa
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
20/07 Santa Margherita - Menolzio
05/08 Madonna d. Salette - Pra la Grangia
10/08 San Lorenzo - Toglie
16/10 San Rocco – Mattie
16/09 SS. Cornelio e Cipriano - Mattie
Meana di Susa
Superficie: 17,73 km2
Abitanti: 932, Altitudine: 730 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 0122/39161
Internet: www.comune.meanadisusa.to.it
Ufficio turistico: ATL Susa
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
15/08 Assunzione di Maria
Mompantero
Superficie: 30,10 km2
Abitanti: 678, Altitudine: 531 m s.l.m
Moncenisio
Superficie: 3,98 km2
Abitanti: 45, Altitudine: 1461 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 0122/653222
Internet: www.comune.moncenisio.to.it
Ufficio turistico: ATL Susa
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
24/04 San Giorgio martire
Novalesa
Superficie: 28,24 km2
Abitanti: 575, Altitudine: 828 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 0122/653333
Internet: www.comune.novalesa.to.it
Ufficio turistico: ATL Susa
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
17/01 Sant’Antonio abate
13/03 Sant’Eldrado, processione in
costume tradizionale
Processione del venerdì santo
26/12 Santo Stefano
Oulx
Superficie: 99,99 km2
Abitanti: 3.170, Altitudine: 1100 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 0122/831102
Internet: www.comune.oulx.to.it
Ufficio turistico: Ufficio Turistico
Comunale Oulx
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
12/03 San Gregorio – Savoulx
25/04 San Marco
08/05 San Michele – Beaulard
24/06 San Giovanni Batt. – Puy Beaulard
02/07 San Giusto
15/08 Santa Maria Assunta – Oulx
24/08 San Bartolomeo – Ch. Beaulard
Rosta
Superficie: 9 km2
Abitanti: 4510, Altitudine: 399 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 011/9568811
Internet: www.comune.rosta.to.it
Ufficio turistico: IAT Avigliana
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
Settembre, San Michele
Rubiana
Superficie: 26,76 km2
Abitanti: 2.405, Altitudine: 640 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 011/9358923
Internet: www.comune.rubiana.to.it
Ufficio turistico: Ufficio Turistico
Comunale
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
2a domenica di agosto fiaccolata
01/09 Sant’Egidio
Salbertrand
Superficie: 40,88 km2
Abitanti: 561, Altitudine: 1032 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 0122/854595
Internet: www.comune.salbertrand.to.it
Ufficio turistico: Ufficio Turistico
Comunale di Oulx
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
24/06 San Giovanni Battista
16/08 San Rocco
San Didero
Superficie: 3,28 km2
Abitanti: 579, Altitudine: 430 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 011/9637837
Internet: www.comune.sandidero.to.it
Ufficio turistico: ATL Susa
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
26/05 San Desiderio
25/07 San Giacomo
Settembre: Festa dell’uva
San Giorio di Susa
Superficie: 19,60 km2
Abitanti: 1057, Altitudine: 420 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 0122/49666
Internet: www.comune.sangioriodisusa.to.it
Ufficio turistico: ATL Susa
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
24/04 San Giorgio, rievocazione storica,
Danza delle Spade, costumi tradizionali
3a domenica di settembre – Martinetti
4a domenica di ottobre: Festa del Marrone
Sant’Ambrogio di Torino
Superficie: 8,59 km2
Abitanti: 4.816, Altitudine: 365 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 011/93910
Internet: www.comune.
santambrogioditorino.to.it
Ufficio turistico: IAT Avigliana
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
21/11 San Giovanni Vincenzo
07/12 Sant’Ambrogio
167
appendix
Comune: tel. 0122/622323
Internet: www.comune.mompantero.to.it
Ufficio turistico: ATL Susa
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
Prima domenica di febbraio, Ballo
dell’Orso - Urbiano
05/08 Madonna della Neve, processione
del Trittico del Rocciamelone
Sant’Antonino di Susa
Superficie: 9,96 km2
Abitanti: 4.307, Altitudine: 380 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 011/9639911
Internet: www.comune.
santantoninodisusa.to.it
Ufficio turistico: ATL Susa
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
Giugno: Borghinfesta
1° domenica di settembre Sant’Antonino
Sauze di Cesana
Superficie: 78,52 km2
Abitanti: 235, Altitudine: 1560 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 0122/755955
Internet: www.comune.sauzedicesana.to.it
Ufficio turistico: ATL Cesana
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
25/05 San Restituto
Sauze d’Oulx
Superficie: 17,10 km2
Abitanti: 1.170, Altitudine: 1509 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 0122/858908
Internet: www.comune.sauzedoulx.to.it
Ufficio turistico: ATL Sauze d’Oulx
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
17/01 Sant’Antonio abate
24/06 San Giovanni Battista
Sestriere
Superficie: 25,80 km2
Abitanti: 900, Altitudine: 2035 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 0122/750613
Internet: www.comune.sestriere.to.it
Ufficio turistico: ATL Sestriere
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
Carnevale (biennale), Carnevale
tradizionale di Champlas du Col
Luglio: Regina Pacis, con costumi
tradizionali
13/10 Sant’Edoardo
Susa
Superficie: 11,26 km2
Abitanti: 6.806, Altitudine: 503 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 0122/648301
Internet: www.cittadisusa.it
Ufficio turistico: ATL Susa
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
Luglio: corsa automobilistica Susa –
Moncenisio
05/08 Madonna della Neve, processione
del Trittico del Rocciamelone
Settembre: Festival del Folklore la
168
Castagna d’Oro; Bierfestival
19/10 San Giusto
Vaie
Superficie: 7,08 km2
Abitanti: 1.498, Altitudine: 381 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 011/9649020
Internet: www.comune.vaie.to.it
Ufficio turistico: ATL Susa
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
Maggio: Sagra del canestrello
20/07 Santa Margherita
Venaus
Superficie: 19,80 km2
Abitanti: 969, Altitudine: 604 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 0122/50110
Internet: www.comune.venaus.to.it
Ufficio turistico: ATL Susa
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
03/02 San Biagio, Danza delle Spade,
costumi tradizionali
05/02 Sant’Agata
Villar Dora
Superficie: 5,64 km2
Abitanti: 3.035, Altitudine: 367 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 011/9351218
Internet: www.comune.villardora.to.it
Ufficio turistico: IAT Avigliana
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
20/01 Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio
Villar Focchiardo
Superficie: 25,63 km2
Abitanti: 2.045, Altitudine: 450 m s.l.m
Comune: tel. 011/9645025
Internet: www.comune.villarfocchiardo.to.it
Ufficio turistico: ATL Susa
Feste tradizionali e manifestazioni
Falò di Carnevale
Sacra Rappresentazione Venerdì Santo
Villar Focchiardo in fiore
26/09 Santi Cosma e Damiano
3a domenica di ottobre Sagra Valsusina
del Marrone