Cappella campestre di Santo Stefano a Perno

On the hilltop of Perno, a hamlet of Monforte d'Alba, the country chapel of Santo Stefano preserves a 12th-century Romanesque stone apse and medieval frescoes above a site that once served as a burial ground.

Why it matters

The chapel is among the oldest documented places of worship in Monforte d'Alba's countryside. Excavations carried out between 1980 and 1982 revealed tombs of the 10th–12th centuries on the hill, showing that the site served as a burial ground before the present building existed; the chapel itself originated in the Romanesque 12th century, and its semicircular stone apse and portions of the side walls survive from that first construction. Everything else — nave and façade — was rebuilt between 1753 and 1757 and restored in 1977–1983. The result is a stratified building, Romanesque bone with 18th-century body, standing at 394 metres above vineyards in a hamlet dominated by the medieval Castello di Perno of the Falletti family.

What to notice

• The semicircular Romanesque apse in stone,

modest in size but carrying the building's whole early history on its surface.

• The apse frescoes. On the right side stands a saint — possibly St Matthew —

with an angel at his feet, attributed to the second half of the 14th or the beginning of the 15th century; on the left, a fragment shows the stoning of St Stephen, from the second half of the 15th century, whose subject matches the chapel's dedication.

• The join between periods, visible where the Romanesque side-wall fragments

meet the 1753–1757 nave and façade.

• The setting: a hilltop at 394 m in the borgata of Perno, with the castle of

the Falletti lords nearby and vineyard views over the Monforte slope of the Barolo area.

Context and history

Perno's chapel documents activity at this hilltop over nearly a millennium. The hill was a burial place from at least the 10th century, as the 1980–1982 excavations demonstrated with tombs spanning the 10th to 12th centuries; a church was then founded in the Romanesque period, of which the semicircular apse and fragments of the side walls remain. By the mid-18th century the medieval nave had given out, and between 1753 and 1757 the nave and façade were rebuilt in the forms seen today, while the old apse was retained as the sanctuary. The late-medieval frescoes in the apse basin — the angel-bearing saint on the right, the stoning of the church's patron on the left — survived these works and later deteriorations, and were consolidated during the restoration campaign of 1977–1983. The chapel thus offers, in one small building, a cross-section of Langhe religious architecture from Romanesque masonry to Baroque-era rebuilding and modern conservation.