The church of San Sebastiano stands along via Vittorio Emanuele, at the corner of the square people dedicate to the same saint, and it is one of the smallest churches in Sommariva del Bosco but also one of the most successful. It was built in the early eighteenth century, almost certainly on the remains of a pillar raised during the plague of 1630. The coherence of its style, a by then mature baroque, is such that it is attributed to the Dogliani architect Francesco Gallo, though no document confirms it.
What to see
Outside, the volumes are set off by pilaster strips and cornices and by the use of exposed brick, and everything converges on the lantern that closes the dome: that is the focal point of the building. The bell tower beside it is sturdy but lightened by a measured alternation of straight and curved lines; together church and tower look like a bulwark set to guard the southern entrance to the town. Look too at the main door, in wood carved with geometric and floral motifs.
Visiting
Inside, the light is what strikes you: wide windows open between the arches carrying the dome. There is a single nave, with sturdy piers softened by pilaster strips and Corinthian capitals, and the painted decoration deliberately contrasts with the sobriety of the exterior, as baroque taste required. The finest piece is the wooden pulpit, which carries the date 1608 on its front and came here from another church. On the pier to the left of the altar is a Good Shepherd painted in the late nineteenth century by Luigi Morgari, and in the apse a large canvas with the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, the Virgin and Saint Roch, attributed to the local painter Giovanni Maria Borri.
Our editors' tip
This is not the town's church, it is a quarter's church: the cantone of San Sebastiano, one of the four into which the old centre is divided and which in the seventeenth century competed to build on the grandest scale. The quarter is still alive: on its feast day the inhabitants lay on a day of entertainments and in the evening light a great bonfire to see winter out. Tradition has it that once the fire has died down the young men of the quarter leap on the still-hot ashes to prove their courage.