The church of Saint John the Baptist, also called San Giovanni Lanero and holding the title of duomo, is the parish church of Nizza Monferrato. The story begins elsewhere: the original church dedicated to the Baptist, which tradition holds was founded by the Lombards and belonged to the order of Santa Croce di Mortara, stood beside the town hall, while the original parish church was Santa Maria in Lanero.
What to see
The present building was born instead as the church of the Conventual Franciscans of San Francesco: it was rebuilt between 1768 and 1772 to a design by Filippo Giovanni Battista Nicolis di Robilant, and only in 1827 was parish status transferred to it. In the second half of the nineteenth century came the new frescoes, painted by Pietro Ivaldi.
Visiting
The stepped front faces south-west and is divided into two registers by a string course, both marked out by pilasters: below, the four-column porch, the main doorway, the side entrances and two small windows; above, narrower, the blocked rose window and the triangular pediment. The bell tower has a square base, a single-light window on each side of the belfry and a four-sided roof. Inside, three naves divided into four bays by piers carrying round arches, and at the end the presbytery with its semicircular apse.
Our editors' tip
The interior you see is not the original one: it was of exposed brick, and was clad in marble slabs two years after the flood of 1948. The floor was entirely redone in 1975, when the building was adapted to post-conciliar rules. Among the works remain the eighteenth-century processional statue of the Risen Christ and the altars built by the Giudice family.