Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista

Racconigi's main parish church rose between 1719 and 1730 to a design attributed to the Piedmontese baroque architect Francesco Gallo. Inside, a trompe-l'oeil vault, a Baptism of Jesus linked to court painter Claudio Francesco Beaumont and two tribunes bearing Savoy arms make it the essential complement to the royal castle a few streets away.

Why it matters

San Giovanni Battista is where Racconigi's civic and courtly histories meet. Rebuilt at the community's expense as the town outgrew its medieval chapel, it became the parish church that served the Savoy household whenever the court was in residence — physically, through the pair of tribunes bearing Savoy arms, one of which was used by the royal family at Mass. Its construction involved one of the leading church architects of the Savoy state, Francesco Gallo of Mondovì, and its decoration drew on the circle of Claudio Francesco Beaumont, court painter to Carlo Alberto's predecessors. Its architecture and decoration connect the town's religious traditions with the artistic culture of the Savoy court.

What to notice

• The sober brick façade, with a portal bearing the dedication inscription and the coat of arms of Racconigi.
• The octagonal dome and the assertive bell tower, which give the building an austere solemnity.
• The frescoed vault of 1759, a trompe-l'oeil work by Pietro Antonio Pozzo, Giuseppe Dallamano and Racconigi's own Francesco Antonio Cuniberti — who died in 1757 falling from the scaffolding.
• The high altar designed by Gallo in polychrome marble with bronze decorations, framing a Baptism of Jesus attributed to Claudio Francesco Beaumont.
• The 1473 baptismal font from the Zabreri workshop of San Damiano di Macra, survivor of the medieval predecessor.
• The Chapel of the Crucifix, carried out under the patronage of Count Pochettino di Serravalle, with a crucifix by Stefano Maria Clemente set in a medallion frescoed by Pozzo and statues of the Virgin of Sorrows and St John the Evangelist by Carlo Giuseppe Plura; beyond the chapel stand a statue of the prior Giuseppe Maria Cambiano di Ruffia, the project's great promoter, by Giovanni Battista Bernero, and the marble bust and plaque honouring the noble backer Giò Angelo Spada.

Context and history

The church stands on the site of an earlier chapel dedicated to St John the Baptist, probably founded around 1320–1330 within the pleban district of Cavallermaggiore. By the early eighteenth century the growing town needed something larger, and the old chapel was demolished in 1719. The new building, erected between 1719 and 1730, was entrusted to Francesco Gallo, assisted by master builders Alessandro Chiarino and Luigi Quadrupane, and financed largely by the townspeople, with the prior Cambiano di Ruffia and the nobleman Giò Angelo Spada as key backers — Spada is honoured inside with a marble bust and plaque. The interior takes the form of a single spacious hall on a reversed Latin cross plan, with the presbytery divided from the nave by a marble balustrade and arch. The parish house beside the church also holds a small gallery of sacred art dedicated to the Racconigi-born painter Carlo Sismonda.