San Giacomo is the parish church of Rivarolo's patron, and the town's great feast, on 25 July, begins here with the solemn mass. It was built in 1775 to a design by the architect Costanzo Michela: in 2025 the town celebrated two hundred and fifty years from its dedication.
What to see
The front is Baroque, in exposed masonry, and was restored in 1991. Inside, the layout is of three naves closed by the apse, with a high altar of some note. Among the works are a wooden statue of the Virgin, by Clemente, and a Supper at Emmaus by the Ivrea painter Tullio Alemanni.
Visiting
The bell tower stands beside the apse, is forty-eight metres tall and is the thing you see from far off as you come into town. At the top there is no cross but a rooster: it is the emblem of Rivarolo, the same that appears at the top of the coat of arms, above the crown with five towers and above the motto Vigilantia. The watching rooster and the word that explains it are the same idea, said twice.
Our editors' tip
Come in the last week of July if you can. Around the patronal feast turn the procession with the Filarmonica Rivarolese, which in 2025 completed a hundred and forty years, and the farm fair with the show of Piedmontese cattle, now at its 441st edition: it is the rare case in which the saint's feast and the livestock fair never came apart.