The church of Santi Cosma e Damiano stands at the northern entrance of San Damiano, where the fortress built by the men of Asti who founded the borgo in the thirteenth century once stood. It sits crosswise, almost closing the mouth of the main street, and that is no accident: the entrance to the old fortresses was not frontal but oblique, and that link can still be read between the northern avenue and the start of via Roma.
What to see
The bell tower is entirely of brick and appears to have been a tower of the fortifications, later turned into a belfry; in 1815, with the offerings of the faithful and the care of provost Bussolino, it was raised higher. Beside it, the circular-plan choir has fifteenth-century forms: with the bell tower and part of the presbytery it is the oldest portion of the building. The facade, instead, faces south out of necessity, because the western side was blocked by the confraternity of the Annunziata.
Visiting
Inside there are three naves, with five chapels on the left and only one on the right, dedicated to Saint Rita. The mosaic floor was made for the jubilee of 1900 and carries the arms of the bishop of Asti Giacinto Arcangeli and those of pope Leo XIII. The organ is by Francesco Vegezzi Bossi, built in 1918 reusing the material of an earlier instrument by the Collino brothers.
Our editors' tip
The dates that tell this parish best are not the architectural ones. The first certain one is 1484, when the pastoral visits of the bishops of Asti begin; then 1584, the year the parishioners asked and obtained the right to baptise here instead of at San Vincenzo or Santa Maria Nuova; and finally 1589, when the registers of births and deaths started. From then on the community has a written memory of itself.