Also known as the shrine of the Nativity of Mary Most Holy or the Regina Montis Regalis shrine, the shrine of Vicoforte, one of the most important houses of worship in Piedmont, is universally known for its spectacular elliptical dome, the largest in the world with this shape. The present sanctuary was built beginning in 1596: legend has it that, four years earlier, a hunter accidentally shot an arquebus at a 15th-century image of the Virgin that decorated a medieval shrine, and the work began to bleed (the arquebus of the legend is, moreover, preserved in the sanctuary’s museum). The hunter had the damage repaired, and the site became a destination for frequent pilgrimages, to the point that in 1596, Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy commissioned the architect Ascanio Vittozzi to design a large shrine that could also in the future become a mausoleum of the Savoy family. Following the death of Vittozzi in 1615 and of the duke in 1630, work was interrupted for about fifty years: it was resumed from 1682, while the design for the elliptical dome, signed by Francesco Gallo, dates from 1728. Construction was not completed until 1884 with the final additions by Alessandro Antonelli.
In the chapel of St. Benedict, the most sumptuous in the sanctuary and home to the monument to Duchess Margherita sculpted in the early 18th century by sculptor Giuseppe Gagini, decorated several times between 1663 and 1719, is made use of marbles of different provenance (white and bardiglio from Carrara, Portoro from Liguria, red from France, red from Sicily) but also many Piedmontese marbles, such as verzino, white, dark bigio and black from Frabosa and seravezza from Moncervetto. The latter material was used to make the large corbels that support the base on which the statue of the infanta in the chapel rests. Moncervetto seravezza was also used on the exterior of the structure, as material for the capitals and bases of the columns of the entrance porch.
LUN - VEN: 09:00-13:00 | 15:00-18:00
