Chiesa parrocchiale di Santa Maria Assunta

Facing the castle across Issogne's main square stands the village's parish church, a building whose written record stretches back to a papal bull of 1152. Rebuilt in the eighteenth century after a flood and redecorated again and again since, it layers medieval origins, Challant patronage and Baroque and modern painting within a few paces of the region's most famous residence.

Why it matters

This is Issogne's mother church, and its paper trail is unusually long for a valley village: a chapel here appears among the bishop of Aosta's possessions in a bull of Pope Eugenius III dated 1152, and a bull of Alexander III in 1176 already calls it a church. Its story is inseparable from the castle opposite — for centuries the medieval bell tower served as a corner tower of the fortress, and the right to appoint the parish priest belonged to the Challant counts until 1825. The church's devotional history complements the secular presence of the castle across the square.

What to notice

The 2002–2003 restoration returned the facade to its original straw-yellow colour with a band of blue lozenges, and the Assumption painted by Luigi Artari may still be read above the portal, though the attribution of that particular image remains uncertain. The interior decoration reflects the building's later history in paint. The apse scenes of the Last Supper, the Assumption and the Crucifixion were painted by Ettore Mazzini in 1947. Pietro Silvestro of Aosta painted the vault frescoes in 1894, and Luciano Bartoli of Padua redecorated the church between 1972 and 1973. Statues in the facade niches date from post-war roof and facade works, and the organ was installed in 1963. Painted and gilded Baroque altars and wooden furnishings complement the later decoration.

Context and history

In the fifteenth century the church stood pressed against the castle walls, and its old bell tower doubled as an angle tower of the fortress. Damage in the early eighteenth century — attributed by the municipal account to a flood — forced a full rebuild: an agreement of 12 December 1730 between the community and Count Charles-François di Challant set the terms — villagers supplied the labour, the count the land and the money. Work lasted about ten years, and the new church was consecrated on 24 April 1745 by Bishop Pierre-François de Sales. The ownership dispute over the medieval tower outlasted even the Challants: in 1877 the parish and commune won a lawsuit against Vittorio Avondo, the castle's painter-restorer, over the tower's possession. The present bell tower and adjacent rectory are much newer, built in 1958–59. Paintings commissioned from Luigi Artari in 1816–1818 are among the earliest documented decorative campaigns of the modern church.