The church of San Domenico, in Chieri, is a Gothic church of the fourteenth century, joined to the nearby convent. The Dominicans had been welcomed to the town at the end of the thirteenth century by the Broglia family; building of the church and convent began in the following century. Originally it had a nave and two aisles, but within about a hundred years numerous chapels of the patrician families grew up along its sides. The Dominican order still runs the convent and the church today.
What to see
The façade is not straight and flat: it follows the line of the town's old defensive walls. Projecting pilasters act as buttresses to the walls and the façade, and each ends in a pinnacle. Inside, the columns have horizontal bands of two colours.
In 1614 the decoration of the choir was entrusted to Guglielmo Caccia, il Moncalvo: on the side walls, above the wooden stalls, are two large canvases by him, the Multiplication of the Loaves and the Raising of Lazarus. The painting in the chapel of the Rosary, with the Virgin, the Child and the stories of the Rosary, is also his. The church also has works by Giovanni Martino Spanzotti, and in the first chapel on the left the copies of a Deposition by Gaudenzio Ferrari and of a painting by Guercino, the original of which is in San Domenico in Turin.
Visiting
Opening and Mass times should be checked with the convent or on the tourism website of the town of Chieri.
Our editors' tip
On the first column on the left look for the Madonna del latte, a fresco showing the Virgin nursing the Child. In the church there is also a statue of Giuseppe Girotti, a priest ordained in this very church, who died in the Dachau camp during the Second World War and was beatified at Alba in 2014.
