Chiesa Parrocchiale di San Giovanni Battista (Diano d'Alba)

Rising above Piazza Pertinace on the hilltop of Diano d'Alba, the Parish Church of San Giovanni Battista is the village's principal monument: a Piedmontese Baroque church built between 1763 and 1770 to a design by Carlo Francesco Rangone, whose façade and bell tower face the vineyard panorama that made this hilltop famous.

Why it matters

The Municipality includes the church on its official tourist itinerary and records its construction dates and architect: built from 1763 to 1770 on a design by C. F. Rangone, in a Piedmontese Baroque showing the influence of Juvarra's school. That makes the church the architectural expression of Diano d'Alba's eighteenth-century prosperity, on the exact spot where the medieval castle stood until its demolition. The church also serves as a belvedere: the church and its large square occupy the village's most commanding ground, overlooking the roofs toward the Langhe and Belbo valley. The patron saint is San Giovanni Battista himself, celebrated on 24 June, the village's feast day.

What to notice

The late-eighteenth-century layout includes a single nave flanked by six side chapels, giant Corinthian pilasters, stucco and gilded friezes, round arches, and a sail-vault over the presbytery that simulates a dome. The façade, inspired by grand models such as the sanctuary of Vicoforte, carries a pedimented portico of five bays with sandstone pilasters. The painted decoration by Rodolfo Morgari of Turin, the Turin-trained painter-restorer who worked here in the 1890s, alongside canvases attributed to Fedele Finatti of Alba. Two curiosities stand out: an organ of about 1,400 pipes dating from 1888, and stained-glass windows made in 2000 by glassmaker Vigliaturo on designs by the artist Libero Nada, depicting the parables in a modern key against the Baroque stucco.

Context and history

The parish is ancient, recorded by 1325 and dedicated to Saint John by 1344, but the medieval church stood beside the castle that was demolished in 1631, attached to the small church of the Madonna d'Oriente. By the mid-eighteenth century the community wanted a worthy new building: in 1761 the archpriest Valentino Bocchiardi obtained permission to rebuild, and work proceeded from 1763 through roughly a decade on the design of Carlo Francesco Rangone. The bell tower followed much later, completed in 1834 with community funding recorded on a plaque, and finished in a curious neo-Baroque style. The interior decoration was renewed by Morgari in 1894–95, and the Vittino organ arrived in 1888. Behind the modern altar the original altar machine survives, one of the few intact elements of the church's first furnishing.