La via delle Cappelle

The Way of the Chapels links Mondovì to the sanctuary of Vicoforte through chapels, votive pillars and crosses associated with the mysteries of the Rosary. Conceived in 1682, revived by nineteenth-century bishops and restored in the twenty-first century, it reflects the history of local faith.

Why it matters

Sacred mountains with chapel paths are a Piemontese specialty, but this route is their humbler, more intimate cousin: not a purpose-built devotional park, a thread of worship stitched through a living landscape of fields, borgate and lanes. Each station marks one of the Rosary's mysteries, from the Annunciation to the Coronation, with the sanctuary itself serving as the fifteenth.

The route also condenses three centuries of local history into one hike. Its stations range from a Baroque-era chapel of 1689 to neoclassical tempietti of the 1870s–80s, plain votive pillars of the early 1900s, crosses planted for the Jubilee of 2000, and restorations funded in the 2020s. The sequence reflects the fortunes of the community: periods of confidence produced architecture, hard times produced pillars and cross-marked intentions, and the current decade is writing its own chapter.

What to notice

The mystery sequence gives the trail its devotional structure. In the Fiammenga district, look for the single survivor of the first four chapels built by Vico families between 1682 and 1689 — the Pentecost chapel, the oldest station on the route and the only trace of the original 17th-century plan. Further on, the 19th-century revival shows its face in the Annunciation chapel of 1885 by Giovanni Schellino and the Flagellation chapel of 1877, while the "Salita al Calvario" incorporates an older votive pillar of 1750, one era of devotion embedded in another.

Not every mystery received a building. The early-1900s pillars erected between 1905 and 1911 have a bare, almost modern dignity, and sites where nothing could be built are marked simply by Jubilee crosses or a bas-relief — silences that are part of the story. One station is unusual: the Crucifixion is represented by a fresco attributed to 1745 on the parish church of Santi Pietro e Paolo, tying the route to the medieval pieve of the borgo. Between stations, the path crosses an open landscape with views over the Monregalese toward the sanctuary's dome.

Context and history

The idea of fourteen Rosary chapels arose in 1682, when a renewed wave of devotion to the Madonna of Vico — the same current that produced the first coronation of the image — suggested a permanent prayer path. A few Vico families funded four chapels at their own expense in the Fiammenga district between 1682 and 1689; of these only the Pentecost chapel survives. The plan then languished for nearly two centuries.

Revival came from the bishops of Mondovì. Tommaso Ghilardi, who led the diocese from 1842 to 1873, relaunched the project explicitly on the model of the Sacro Monte di Varese, the most celebrated chapel path in northern Italy. His successor Placido Pozzi (1873–1897) built five small temples in a neoclassical style before finances failed. The early 20th century could afford only three votive pillars, raised between 1905 and 1911, and during the Jubilee Year 2000 commemorative crosses marked the stations never built. The most recent chapter began in 2022 under bishop Egidio Miragoli, with a restoration project backed by national PNRR funds and the banking foundations Fondazione CRC and Compagnia di San Paolo, evidence that the community regards the route as living heritage.

The path remains in liturgical use, including processions for the Feast of the Ascension and the Nativity of Mary on 8 September.