San Pietro in Vincoli: Parish Church of Lanzo Torinese
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Modern
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Duchy of Savoy, Italian, Kingdom of Sardinia
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page15 sections
History
San Pietro in Vincoli is a historic parish church in Lanzo Torinese, Italy, whose origins reach back to the eleventh century. Its medieval predecessor was a chapel beside the town’s castle, linking the church’s early history to the fortified settlement.
From castle chapel to parish church
In 1543, Gian Giacomo Medici, the sixteenth-century military commander known as Medeghino, ordered the chapel demolished. The action was intended to isolate the adjacent castle and strengthen its defences. After the French demolished the castle, the parish church was rebuilt on the former chapel site.
The enlarged church reopened for worship in 1591. Around the same period, the parish of Lanzo was transferred to Santa Maria, a church that remains well preserved along the former Borgo district, now Via San Giovanni Bosco.
Expansion and nineteenth-century decoration
San Pietro in Vincoli was enlarged and embellished between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The work was completed by the vicar Don Tagna, who also built the adjoining parish house. Blessed Federico Albert, a nineteenth-century Catholic priest and pastor associated with Lanzo, provided for the construction of the northern facade and began work on the bell tower.
The bell tower was begun in 1872 under Monsignor Tresso and completed in 1885. A tornado destroyed its spire, which was rebuilt in the 1960s. Many of the church’s frescoes and ornamental friezes were commissioned and largely executed during Albert’s pastorate and that of his successor, Tresso.
Parish and devotional life
San Pietro in Vincoli is the seat of Lanzo Torinese’s only parish and belongs to the Archdiocese of Turin. From 1984 until 31 August 2025, the parish was entrusted to the Salesian order, founded by the priest and educator Giovanni Bosco. After the local Salesian house closed, responsibility returned to the secular clergy.
The seventeenth-century wooden group called the Macchina di San Pietro continues to be carried in procession through Lanzo on 1 August, the patronal feast day. It depicts Saint Peter in Chains with the angel who frees him and a sleeping guard.
Remains
Exterior and interior
Facade and bell tower
The church has a principal facade and an imposing bell tower that rises 31 metres. The tower combines a substantial scale with an elegant appearance, while its present spire reflects the rebuilding carried out in the 1960s after the tornado.
Decorated interior
Inside are paintings, other works of art, a gilded pulpit, and frescoed vaults by the painter G. Guglielmino. Frescoes over the right-hand nave depict the Shroud of Turin, a cloth venerated as bearing the image of Christ, together with symbols of the Passion. They commemorate the transfer of the Shroud from Turin to Genoa in 1706, arranged by Duke Victor Amadeus II while he was fleeing the French siege. A Mandylion, a Christian image traditionally associated with the face of Jesus and venerated in Genoa, appears beside it. The pairing of Mandylion and Shroud imagery also occurs at Cumiana and Vicoforte.
Paintings and devotional sculpture
Macchina di San Pietro
The Macchina di San Pietro is a seventeenth-century wooden statuary group showing Saint Peter in Chains, his liberating angel, and a sleeping guard. Its continuing use in the 1 August procession preserves a devotional practice associated with the church and the town.
Resurrection
Resurrection is a seventeenth-century canvas commissioned for the Lanzo families Bo, Gallenga, and Usseglio. It is placed near the crypt, where many members of those families are buried.
Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata
The altarpiece Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata was painted by the Venetian artist Carlo Saraceni. Bartolomeo Bonesio commissioned it in 1605 for the high altar of the Capuchin convent on Monte Buriasco. The Capuchins are a reform branch of the Franciscan order. After the convent was closed and sold to Giovanni Bosco for a college boarding school, the painting was transferred to San Pietro in Vincoli. Restoration revealed an image of Pope Clement VIII between the angel’s hands.
The Liberation of Saint Peter from Prison
The Liberation of Saint Peter from Prison is a monumental high-altarpiece. Murat attributed it to the artistic circle associated with Claudio Francesco Beaumont, an eighteenth-century Piedmontese painter, and placed it between 1775 and 1800.
Saints Romuald and Boniface
Saints Romuald and Boniface was painted by Giovanni Francesco Sacchetti between 1663 and 1675 for the Camaldolese Hermitage of Lanzo. Count Gaspare Graneri della Rocca di Ceres commissioned it. He had founded the hermitage in 1661 and donated it to the Camaldolese, a monastic branch of the Benedictine tradition.
Organ and choir loft
The Giuseppe Mola pipe organ stands in a wooden choir loft above the main entrance. Installed in 1894, it replaced an organ from the second half of the eighteenth century. Its case, inherited from the earlier instrument, is made of gilded wood and divided into three bays. A curved upper frame carries the coat of arms of Lanzo at its centre.
The facade has 27 principal-register pipes, arranged in groups of nine within the three bays. They have a flat profile, aligned mouths, and mitred upper lips. The choir loft’s front balustrade consists of 13 square panels: two lateral panels, five on each side along the curved profile, and one larger central panel aligned with the console. The panels are green with gilded profiles.
The instrument has two chromatic keyboards of 56 keys each and a concave pedalboard with 27 pedals. Three lantern bellows and the air-supply wheel occupy the space below the pipes, with the wheel operated automatically by an electric motor. Four windchests distribute pressurized air to the pipes: one serves the first keyboard, a second serves the higher and centrally placed second keyboard, a third serves the pedal stops against the rear wall, and another serves the contrabasses. The organ uses pneumatic action, with a mechanical connection between the console and the bases of the pipes.
