Sant'Antonio Abate is the parish church of Castelletto sopra Ticino. The earlier church had been built in the fifteenth century; on 21 May 1713 it was raised to provostal rank, and by the middle of that century it proved too small for the faithful, so it was decided to replace it with a larger one.
What to see
The first stone of the new parish church was laid on 18 August 1765 and the building was completed in 1775; consecration came much later, on 5 January 1800, at the hands of Giacinto della Torre, bishop of Acqui. The facade is later still: it was built in 1875 to a design by Ercole Marietti.
Visiting
The front is stepped and a string course divides it into two registers. The lower one has six pilaster strips, three doorways, two windows and two niches with statues; the upper, narrower one has two pairs of coupled pilasters at the sides, alternating with niches holding more statues, and a large window at the centre. It is a composition best read from the other side of the square, because the two registers are designed to be seen from a distance.
Our editors' tip
It is worth keeping the gaps between the dates in mind. Thirty-five years pass between the laying of the first stone and the consecration, and a hundred between the end of the works and the facade: a village church was not built in one go but in successive campaigns, whenever the money was there. The nineteenth-century front, which at first glance looks like the oldest part, is in fact the last to arrive.
