The sanctuary stands on the shore of one of the two lakes, which is where its name comes from. Work began in November 1622 at the wish of duke Charles Emmanuel I: the building was entrusted to Bartolomeo and Bino Lumaga, to a design by Nicola Ramelli, then ducal architect; the dome dates from 1638 and is the work of Antonio Rolla. The craftsmen were the same who worked at Santa Maria al Monte dei Cappuccini in Turin, and the outward likeness between the two buildings shows.
What to see
You enter through a small pronaos on two columns with Corinthian capitals. Inside, almost everything you see comes from the generosity of the House of Savoy. On the altar is a large panel attributed to Defendente Ferrari, already cited in 1584 and given by duke Charles Emmanuel I, who kept it in his private collection: an Annunciation, with Saint Roch and Saint Sebastian on the side panels and further episodes from the life of Mary in the predella. Then there is a copy of Caravaggio's Madonna of the Pilgrims, datable to the very first years after the original of 1604, when cardinal Maurizio of Savoy was living in Rome; the large Saint Michael defeating Lucifer by Antonio Maria Viani; and a Saint Maurice by Guido Reni. The last two were gifts of the Savoy cardinal himself.
Visiting
The oldest piece is not a painting but a fresco: the Marian icon painted on a medieval pillar, probably fourteenth century, which some link to the hand of Giacomo Jaquerio, then at work at Sant'Antonio di Ranverso. It is the image before which, according to tradition, Bonne of Bourbon, wife of Amedeo VI, prayed for a male heir.
Our editors' tip
The sanctuary faces the water and sits on the route around the lakes: fit it into the walk rather than treating it as a stop of its own. And it is worth going in even knowing nothing about Caravaggio or Guido Reni: in a provincial church, three paintings of that standing in one room are not a common sight.