The parish church of Cumiana stands on the rise of the Motta district. The first explicit mention of a church in the village is in a document of pope Eugene III of 1152; the present building, however, is eighteenth-century, and it is the largest oval-plan church in Piedmont after the sanctuary of Vicoforte.
What to see
The facade faces west and is of Cumiana stone: at the centre the doorway, surmounted by a small curved pediment and by a wide lunette window; at the sides two statues symbolising the Old and the New Testament and two niches. Four imposing half-columns with Ionic capitals carry the triangular pediment. Beside it rises the square bell tower, with a round-arched single window and balustrade on each side and a spire at the top.
Visiting
Inside, the nave is single and elliptical in plan, measuring 50 metres by 26, with side chapels entered through round arches; the walls are marked by Ionic half-columns carrying the entablature. The presbytery is deep, raised a few steps, covered by the dome and closed by a semicircular apse. The striking technical detail is that the dome rests directly on the entablature, with no drum in between.
Our editors' tip
The building is the work of two hands. The nave was rebuilt between 1755 and 1786 to a design by Giovan Battista Morari, while presbytery and apse were left untouched because they had already been redone at the start of the century; then, in 1833, the engineer Gaetano Lombardi reworked the far end to fit the body Morari had drawn. The consecration came much later, on 31 August 1872.