The church of San Giuseppe stands on the main square of San Damiano and is one of the largest baroque buildings in Piedmont. It always housed the confraternity of San Giuseppe, known as the Compagnia degli Angeli, instituted in 1563: from 1565 its seat was beside the public clock tower, and the baroque rebuilding ran from 1700 to 1715.
What to see
The facade is stretched upwards for lack of room, and everything points to the wooden doorway and the four-lobed central window. Above rises an octagonal tiburio: each side has a round-arched opening through which parts of the dome appear, clad in three thousand terracotta scales in three colours, red, yellow and green. At the top a six-opening lantern with its own cupola. To the right of the front, the communal bell tower, designed by Filippo Castelli above the old clock tower, reaches the same height as the dome.
Visiting
The plan is made of two ellipses, the larger for the body of the church and the smaller for the choir, with a rectangle between them where the high altar stands. The dome tells the life of Saint Joseph in four scenes, and the drum beneath it has eight large windows: four real and four painted in trompe-l'oeil. All the frescoes are by the brothers Pietro and Antonio Pozzi of Bergamo, who worked here four years, from 1741 to 1744.
Our editors' tip
Look at the pendentives: there are the four continents then known, personified as female figures on clouds. Europe holds the cross, the keys and a cornucopia, with books and sheets of music at her feet; Asia carries feathers, perfumes, corals and precious stones; America is a half-naked huntress with an arrow in her hand; Africa is the only figure with dark skin, and at her feet are a lion and a chained slave. It is the world as seen by those who paid for the fresco, and it is worth looking at for what it is.