Description
The Consolata is Turin's best-loved sanctuary, on Via della Consolata, in the historic center. Its official name is the Basilica of Santa Maria della Consolazione, but everyone calls it "la Consolà": a masterpiece of Piedmontese Baroque built by Guarini, Juvarra and Ceppi.
At the entrance, on the neoclassical portico, the Latin inscription calls Mary "comforter and protector of the city of Turin". Inside, the plan is unusual: first a large elliptical space, the Sant'Andrea hall, then the Guarini hexagon with its ogival chapels and the high altar by Filippo Juvarra.
The walls are covered with ex-votos, and in the right-hand aisle you can see a great many: thanks from the faithful over the centuries. Further down is the crypt with the Chapel of the Graces, which you can see from a loggia.
Beside the church rises the Romanesque bell tower, 40 meters high, built between 980 and 1014 by the monk Bruningo with reused Roman bricks: its tower is the oldest monument Turin can boast after the Roman remains. The main bell, from 1940, is among the largest in Italy.
The church stands on the remains of a tower of the Roman walls. In the 5th century Bishop Maximus had a church built, dedicated to Saint Andrew, with a chapel of the Virgin. The bell tower is what remains of the Romanesque church that replaced it.
The devotion began with an icon. A blind man from Briançon, according to tradition, told how the Madonna had shown him where to find it, beneath the old church. The icon was found on June 20, 1104 and the blind man could see again, but the episode is not proven by documents.
During the siege of 1706 the city entrusted itself to the Consolata, and after the liberation it chose her as co-patron along with Saint John the Baptist. A projectile from those days is still visible at the base of the dome, on the Via della Consolata side.
From 1678 Guarini remade its forms, from 1729 Juvarra redesigned the presbytery and dome, and between 1899 and 1904 Carlo Ceppi enlarged it and gave it its present look. In the 19th century the icon was photographed by Secondo Pia, and it turned out to be a copy.
At the entrance, on the neoclassical portico, the Latin inscription calls Mary "comforter and protector of the city of Turin". Inside, the plan is unusual: first a large elliptical space, the Sant'Andrea hall, then the Guarini hexagon with its ogival chapels and the high altar by Filippo Juvarra.
The walls are covered with ex-votos, and in the right-hand aisle you can see a great many: thanks from the faithful over the centuries. Further down is the crypt with the Chapel of the Graces, which you can see from a loggia.
Beside the church rises the Romanesque bell tower, 40 meters high, built between 980 and 1014 by the monk Bruningo with reused Roman bricks: its tower is the oldest monument Turin can boast after the Roman remains. The main bell, from 1940, is among the largest in Italy.
The church stands on the remains of a tower of the Roman walls. In the 5th century Bishop Maximus had a church built, dedicated to Saint Andrew, with a chapel of the Virgin. The bell tower is what remains of the Romanesque church that replaced it.
The devotion began with an icon. A blind man from Briançon, according to tradition, told how the Madonna had shown him where to find it, beneath the old church. The icon was found on June 20, 1104 and the blind man could see again, but the episode is not proven by documents.
During the siege of 1706 the city entrusted itself to the Consolata, and after the liberation it chose her as co-patron along with Saint John the Baptist. A projectile from those days is still visible at the base of the dome, on the Via della Consolata side.
From 1678 Guarini remade its forms, from 1729 Juvarra redesigned the presbytery and dome, and between 1899 and 1904 Carlo Ceppi enlarged it and gave it its present look. In the 19th century the icon was photographed by Secondo Pia, and it turned out to be a copy.