The old parish church of Brandizzo was also dedicated to Saint James the Greater. The new church was resolved upon by the town council in 1701, but work could not begin before 1718: in between came various problems and the war with France, which in 1706 had led to the siege of Turin.
What to see
The gabled facade faces north and is of exposed brick, divided by a string course into two registers marked by pilasters: below, the pedimented doorway and two niches; above, a window and two more niches, the whole crowned by the pediment. The bell tower, square and of brick, was built by Giovanni Deusebio between 1739 and 1741; the belfry has one single-light window per side flanked by pilasters and a four-pitched roof.
Visiting
The interior has a single nave, with six side chapels and Ionic pilasters carrying the entablature on which the vault rests. The presbytery is raised two steps and closed by a semicircular apse. Here stand the marble high altar and the marble group of the Pietà, which was not made for this church: it comes from the suppressed church of the Santissima Trinità.
Our editors' tip
Half a century passed between the resolution and the consecration: the church was finished in 1731 and consecrated only on 3 April 1752, by Carlo Vittorio Amedeo Ignazio delle Lanze, titular archbishop of Nicosia. It is a rhythm that repeats here: the interior decorations arrived in the second half of the nineteenth century, the present vault between 1936 and 1937.