Chiesa di San Pietro

The abbey complex of San Pietro preserves an extensive ensemble of art and history: a Romanesque foundation rebuilt in Mannerist style, a 1510 altarpiece by Gandolfino da Roreto, frescoes by Giovanni Antonio Molineri, carved choir stalls, a tower attributed to Francesco Gallo, and a quiet Renaissance cloister garden — in the town's oldest quarter near Piazza Molineri.

Why it matters

Local tradition associates the site with early Christianity: a Roman votive slab found under the altar in 1822 suggested the church rose on the remains of a temple of Diana, and tradition credits San Fausto with founding a monastery here in 585. The documented refoundation dates to 1028, after which the complex became a religious and administrative centre of the first importance for Savigliano and lower Piedmont. Between 1434 and 1436, when the University was transferred to Savigliano, examinations and degree theses were argued in this church before the abbot acting as vice-chancellor of the bishop of Turin .

What to notice

The 1822 façade incorporates three sixteenth-century marble portals closed by seventeenth-century wooden doors carved by the Botto workshop. The apsidal polyptych of 1510 by Gandolfino da Roreto is a notable work in the church. In the presbytery, two frescoes of 1621 by Giovanni Antonio Molineri show the Martyrdom of San Pietro and the Martyrdom of San Paolo, alongside his late San Gerolamo; the apsidal grotesques come from the workshop of the Dolce family.

The sculptural triptych of Christ Crucified with the Virgin and San Giovanni is attributed to Pietro Botto; his carved choir stalls date to 1630 and his sacristy cabinet to 1629–30. The choir stalls flanking the presbytery were made by the Tiffner brothers between 1649 and 1654. A Roman inscription of the gens Gavia is preserved in the cloister, together with a baptismal font of 1498.

The cloister has a square, sixteenth-century plan completed in 1621, with two storeys of arcades, and a north range whose upper floor opens into a deep loggia. Its garden, laid out in 2006 on the historical scheme, draws a Greek cross inscribed in a square around a central well.

Context and history

The church's present fabric largely dates to 1599, when architect Ercole Negri di Sanfront carried out a general rebuilding in Mannerist taste, replacing the Romanesque three-aisled structure. Late-seventeenth-century embellishments involved artists such as Giovenale Boetto and Sebastiano Taricco. Between 1722 and 1726 the imposing bell tower rose, attributed to Francesco Gallo, in place of one documented since 1329. The block containing piazza Molineri, via San Pietro, via San Francesco and piazza Misericordia is considered among the first nuclei of settlement in Savigliano. Restorations began in the late 1960s, with the last façade intervention completed in 2007.