Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption: Saluzzo’s Cathedral Church
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Kingdom of Sardinia
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page6 sections
History
The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Saluzzo, Italy, built between 1491 and 1501 in a Gothic style with Gothic-Baroque characteristics. Dedicated to the Assumption of Mary, it is the cathedral and seat of the Diocese of Saluzzo and remains the city’s principal Catholic place of worship.
Romanesque origins and ecclesiastical elevation
The cathedral occupies the site of an earlier Romanesque parish church dedicated to Santa Maria, which is documented from the beginning of the eleventh century. In 1481, Pope Sixtus IV established the church as a collegiate church, an institution served by a college of clergy rather than initially governed as a bishop’s cathedral.
In 1511, at the request of Pope Julius II, the church became the seat of the bishopric of Saluzzo. A bishopric is a diocese governed by a bishop, whose principal church is its cathedral. This change gave the church its continuing diocesan role.
Later recognition and continued use
The cathedral remains active and is recognized as an Italian national monument and as a monument of the Piedmont region. It is also classified as an Italian cultural property. Its present form reflects the construction of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries together with later additions and decorative changes.
Remains
Facade and exterior
The cathedral’s facade combines exposed brick and plaster and is arranged around three entrance portals. The central portal has two columns supporting statues of the apostles Peter and Paul, while a lunette, the semicircular area above a doorway, depicts the Assumption of Mary. The lunettes over the side portals represent Saluzzo’s patron saints, Saint Costanzo and Saint Chiaffredo, who is also identified as Theofrede. A broad staircase in front of the building dates from 1842 and replaced a seventeenth-century staircase. Beside the cathedral stands a bell tower dating from the second half of the eighteenth century.
Interior arrangement and decoration
The interior is divided into three naves covered by groin vaults, which are formed by the intersection of two barrel vaults. The central vault received Neo-Gothic decoration around 1850, while three nineteenth-century frescoes on the counter-facade, the interior wall opposite the main facade, depict episodes from the lives of local saints. The side naves contain fourteen secondary altars, seven on each side. The left nave also includes the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament and the baptistery chapel. Most of the cathedral’s works of art date from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. At the high altar, a group of eleven wooden statues from the beginning of the eighteenth century forms the dominant sculptural ensemble.
