Description
Santa Maria al Monte is the Capuchin church on the hill overlooking the Po, in Borgo Po, a few steps from the Vittorio Emanuele I bridge. Together with the convent it makes up one of the best-known views of Turin: from the terrace in front of the church you look down on the city.
The panoramic terrace opens onto the city. In the south wing of the convent, with its own entrance from there, is the Museo Nazionale della Montagna, named after the Duke of the Abruzzi and linked to the Italian Alpine Club, which also keeps its library here.
The church, on a Greek-cross plan, has a tall octagonal drum. The original lead dome is gone: it lasted until 1801. Inside, frescoes by Isidoro Bianchi from 1630-1633 remain, along with a high altar and wooden statues in the niches.
You climb the 325-meter hill from Borgo Po. The spot controls one of the crossings of the Po and has always been strategic: the Romans already used it, and in the 1st century BC they dedicated a small temple to Jupiter here.
In the Middle Ages there was a tower, the Bastita Taurini, and then a fortress: from 1204 to 1314 it was a Templar stronghold. In 1581 Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy bought the hill back and gave it to the Capuchin friars.
Work began in 1583 and was an obstacle course: two plague epidemics, a lack of money, civil war. Soldati, Ascanio Vitozzi, and Carlo and Amedeo di Castellamonte all came and went.
The church was consecrated only on October 22, 1656, on the occasion of the visit of Christina of Sweden, recently converted to Catholicism. In 1706, during the famous siege, the French failed to take the hill, and hit only the church, with a single cannonball.
In 1799 the Austro-Russian troops chose the hill as a position for the artillery that was meant to bombard Turin, if the French, back in the city, put up resistance. Two cannonballs are still lodged in the church wall today, one for 1706 and one for that episode.
The panoramic terrace opens onto the city. In the south wing of the convent, with its own entrance from there, is the Museo Nazionale della Montagna, named after the Duke of the Abruzzi and linked to the Italian Alpine Club, which also keeps its library here.
The church, on a Greek-cross plan, has a tall octagonal drum. The original lead dome is gone: it lasted until 1801. Inside, frescoes by Isidoro Bianchi from 1630-1633 remain, along with a high altar and wooden statues in the niches.
You climb the 325-meter hill from Borgo Po. The spot controls one of the crossings of the Po and has always been strategic: the Romans already used it, and in the 1st century BC they dedicated a small temple to Jupiter here.
In the Middle Ages there was a tower, the Bastita Taurini, and then a fortress: from 1204 to 1314 it was a Templar stronghold. In 1581 Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy bought the hill back and gave it to the Capuchin friars.
Work began in 1583 and was an obstacle course: two plague epidemics, a lack of money, civil war. Soldati, Ascanio Vitozzi, and Carlo and Amedeo di Castellamonte all came and went.
The church was consecrated only on October 22, 1656, on the occasion of the visit of Christina of Sweden, recently converted to Catholicism. In 1706, during the famous siege, the French failed to take the hill, and hit only the church, with a single cannonball.
In 1799 the Austro-Russian troops chose the hill as a position for the artillery that was meant to bombard Turin, if the French, back in the city, put up resistance. Two cannonballs are still lodged in the church wall today, one for 1706 and one for that episode.