The church of Santa Maria Assunta is the parish church of Caraglio, and its history begins with a disaster: on 22 January 1754 the old parish church collapsed. Ten thousand lire were set aside to rebuild it, and Pio Eula of Cuneo and Gabriele Maria Delfino of Caraglio were charged with planning the clearing of the site. The archbishop of Turin, Rorengo di Rorà, promised an indulgence of eighty days to anyone who contributed to the work.
What to see
The design you see today is by count Vincenzo Nicolis di Robilant and was approved by the archbishop. The front is that of a late baroque village church built without stinting: two orders divided by an entablature, paired columns with Corinthian capitals framing the portal beneath its pediment, a large central window in the upper register and, at the top, a curved crowning with the coat of arms. The plaster alternates pink and cream, and pilaster strips in false marble mark the whole surface.
Visiting
The dates show how long it took. The collapse was in 1754, but the clearing work began only on 13 November 1770, at half past twelve: the local chronicle recorded even the hour. From the following year, 1771, it was the inhabitants of Caraglio who worked in shifts to raise the building, and the church was then consecrated by the new vicar, don Domenico Silvano, who came from Centallo. In 1779 monsignor Vittorio Gaetano Costa di Arignano visited it.
Our editors' tip
Keep in mind those sixteen years between the collapse and the first spadeful, and the shifts worked by the townspeople: this is not a church built by a rich patron, it is a church built by a town that put its own hands to it, with an archbishop offering indulgences to persuade people to help. Seen that way, the elaborate front says something precise: a community that had gone into debt and worked for years did not want a modest church. If you have time, the right comparison is with the Filatoio Rosso, just outside the town: the same decades, but one was paid for by a count and the other by the town.