The Parish Church
A GREAT WORK BY IGNAZIO BIRAGO DI BORGARO
It was built beginning in 1766 by Ignazio Birago di Borgaro, having been commissioned by the royal household.
The pre-existing parish church dedicated to Santa Maria dell'Annunciazione had been erected during the second half of the 16th century, but already one century later it was badly decaying, so much so, that the same Filippo di San Martino had it consolidated within the framework of the construction of his own residence.
In 1724 the community of Aglič considered extending it, asking Costanzo Michela of Agliè and Carlo Cappellaro of Mongrando for design work. The restoration proceeded slowly, thus allowing Ignazio Birago di Borgaro time to meet the royals' desire to design a building that might prove more suitable for the new needs of magnificence of the court of Savoy and to arrange for a large square in front of the Castle.
The Duke of Chiablese, Benedetto Maria Maurizio therefore asked the Municipality and the religious authorities to transfer the unsafe building and related land, agreeing to rebuild a new, more spacious Church in a rear position in order to be able to build the new square in front of the Castle.
Birago's plans for the new church, dating between March 1771 and 1773, the year to which the detail drawings of the altars and the interior details date back, are conserved in the State Archives of Turin.
The building has a single nave with a semi-circular choir and a wide transept.
Particular planimetric devices were used by the architect to adapt the oblique design of the Church to the geometry of the square facing it.
The new building, the work on which was later directed by the architect Giuseppe Castelli, a collaborator of Birago, was completed in its main structures in 1773, but began to be celebrated only in 1777.
The small plaque located on the large door recalls the solemn consecration of the building by the Bishop of Ivrea Ercole Pochettino.
The pavement, which is now covered in carpet, is made of quartzite and unfortunately it is now quite deteriorated.
Above the choir, a large oval shaped canvas represents the "Madonna of the Snow with an Angel offering the Roman Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore". This work by Felice Cervetti is inserted into a stucco frame.
The most updated bibliography has re-valued the figure of Cervetti in particular, a painter who was at the level of experience of Sebastiano Conca.
The large canvases of the side altars depict "the Madonna of the Rosary between Saints Catherine and Domenic" (altar of the left hand wing of the transept) and the "Rapture of San Massimo Ruiz before the Most Blessed Trinity" (first alter to the right of the nave). These are works by Ignazio Nepote and Francesco Antonio Meyerle; both dated 1774, they bear witness to the updated figurative culture of Benedetto Maria Maurizio.
