Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta (Duomo di Saluzzo)

Saluzzo's cathedral, begun in 1491 in the presence of the Marquis Ludovico II and raised to a bishop's seat by Pope Julius II in 1511, is both the religious centre of the city and one of the finest late-Gothic buildings of the old Marquisate. Its naves keep works by the court painter Hans Clemer and by Sebastiano Ricci.

Why it matters

The cathedral's construction dates mark a turning point in the town's history: the new church of Santa Maria Assunta rose between 1491 and 1501 on the site of the old pieve, and in 1511 the birth of the Diocese of Saluzzo, promoted through Pope Julius II della Rovere, made the city a fully fledged ecclesiastical capital alongside its temporal role under the marquises. The cathedral is dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta. Architecturally the building belongs to the Gothic tradition of the region, and its treasures span from the early sixteenth century to the Baroque, mirroring the marquisate's passage from independent court to Savoy province.

What to notice

The cathedral has three naves beneath cross vaults, in a Gothic idiom of broad spans. Much of its interior decoration is neogothic, painted between 1850 and 1856 by Saluzzo artists Luigi and Francesco Gauteri. The main altar, commissioned by Bishop Morozzo in the early eighteenth century, includes eleven faux-marble sculptures by Plura. A wooden crucifix attributed to Baldino da Surso hangs from the triumphal arch and is described as the sole surviving furnishing from the original church. The Chapel of the Most Holy Sacrament, begun in 1700, contains the polyptych of the Marquesses of Saluzzo and a reliquary attributed to Antonio Benedetto Caire, containing the head of Saint Chiaffredo, transferred from Revello in 1642. Works by Hans Clemer and Aimo and Balzarino Volpi date from the early sixteenth century; Sebastiano Ricci's Adorazione dei pastori represents the Settecento.

Context and history

The parish church of Santa Maria is documented from 1175, serving a settlement whose pieve stood outside the early walls and was tied to the church of Santa Maria in nearby Testona. Elevated to a collegiate church in the early 1480s, it was rebuilt from 8 September 1491 — the foundation date recorded in the presence of Ludovico II — with the works finished around 1501. The Diocese of Saluzzo was established on 29 October 1511, supported in Rome by the popes of the della Rovere line, Sixtus IV and Julius II, turning the church into the city's cathedral. The Baroque additions — the chapel from 1700 and the high altar of the 1720s — and the nineteenth-century neogothic repainting trace the building's continuous use. The cathedral became the city's ecclesiastical centre after 1511; the Dominicans' church of San Giovanni had been its medieval parish rival.