The parish church of Castellamonte has an unusual story: it was born inside the building site of another church. In 1842 work began on a new, grandiose parish church designed by Alessandro Antonelli, but in 1846 it stopped and the building was never completed.
What to see
Some decades passed, and in 1871 a far less imposing place of worship began to rise in the presbytery area of the unfinished church, designed in neo-Gothic style by the architect Luigi Formento; it was completed in 1875. The stepped front faces north-west and is adorned with hanging arches: the taller central body has the doorway sheltered by a porch and the rose window, with two large pilaster strips carrying soaring pinnacles, while each side wing has a window and two more pinnacles.
Visiting
Inside, the hall has three naves divided by heavy piers with half-columns, carrying round arches and the ribs of the cross vaults; at the end is the presbytery, raised three steps, closed by a polygonal apse. Among the works are a ceramic nativity by Angelo Pusterla and a Madonna and Child by Renzo Igne. The windows with Saints Peter and Paul and with Christ date from the nineteen-thirties.
Our editors' tip
The bell tower stands about seventy metres from the church, square in plan with a Romanesque shaft, a single-light window on each side of the belfry and a small dome on the drum. That distance is not a whim: it is the measure of the church that was never built, and walking it is the most direct way to grasp how ambitious Antonelli's project was.