The church of San Vincenzo Martire is the parish church of Nole and belongs to the archdiocese of Turin. The original Romanesque church went up between the eleventh and twelfth centuries: the finds brought to light during the excavations of 1984, under the floor, say as much. In the fourteenth century it was enlarged, with the presbytery extended and an extra side aisle added. In 1678 the old building was pulled down and work began on the new church, carried out by the master builders Michele and Domenico Gioannino and finished in the first half of the eighteenth century.
What to see
The gabled front faces west and is divided by a string course into two registers, each marked off by six pilaster strips: below, the three entrance portals and two small square windows; above, five niches holding as many statues, the whole crowned by a triangular pediment. The bell tower has a square base, one single-light window per side in the belfry and a four-pitched roof. Inside there is a single nave divided into five bays, onto which the side chapels and the transept arms open; the walls are marked off by pilasters carrying the entablature from which the vault springs. At the end, the presbytery, raised by two steps, closes with the apse. Among the works, note the two statues of Saints Peter and Paul and the relief of the Glory of Saint Vincent.
Visiting
The presbytery and the sacristy were enlarged in 1765 and six years later archbishop Francesco Luserna Rorengo di Rorà celebrated the consecration. The bell tower was repaired in 1846; between 1900 and 1908 the church was enlarged and reworked; the roof was redone in 1926 and again in 1933. In 1986 the wooden altar table facing the congregation was installed.
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On 15 November 2006, around ten at night, the bell tower collapsed. In falling it destroyed part of the front, the pipe organ that stood on the inner façade and the baptistery. The public prosecutor attributed the collapse to the contractor and to the works supervisors. The parish church was reopened for worship in January 2011, after more than four years of building work, and the new bell tower was inaugurated on 25 September 2021, fifteen years later. Looking at the front you can still tell where the old ends and the new begins: this is a church that carries the date of its rebirth written on it, and that is the reason to stop.