Chiesa della Confraternita di Santa Croce

The church is a few metres from the Town Hall and the Santa Croce Confraternity, at the foot of the Rocca del Santo Sudario.


Typology Building

Period XVII

Accessibility Yes

Visitable Yes

The origins are unknown of the church of Santa Croce which is cited by sources since the years of the Counter-Reformation, when an oratory bearing that name was visited by the apostolic nuncios present in the Valley to examine the status of the sacred buildings (1570). In any case, the current Church of the Santa Croce Confraternity represents a work through which to read the fortune of the eighteenth century in the Valley. The church was in fact built in place of an existing building between 1758 and 1764, designed by the architect Pio Eula, one of the main protagonists of Cuneo Baroque and assistant to the architect Francesco Gallo.

The building has a Greek cross plan and is covered by an elliptical vault and is characterised by the large choir reserved for the brothers and by the concave brick façade punctuated by lese and closed by a jutting tympanum. Inside, the frescoes of the vault, characterised by architecture painted within a rigorous perspective and illusionistic frame were made between 1776 and 1778 by the quadraturist Giuseppe Carlo Barelli and the Bongiovanni Brothers of Pianfei. The two altarpieces depicting the Invention of the Cross and the Virgin Mary showing the habit of the Carmel to San Simone Stock – where in the background the town of Roccavione can be seen – were made by Carlo Andrea Baracco in 1768. The altarpiece of the Invention of the Croce and the high altar is from the 18th century and was recovered from the pre-existing church building.

Conditions of visit

The building is on a small parvis on the left of via Barale, the road that branches off to the right of the SP258 provincial road of the Piazza dell’Olmo
The church overlooks the parvis, its door is at street level; there are several parking spaces along via Barale.
Open during celebrations and events.

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Additional information

Bibliography

  • AA.VV.,Le valli tra i parchi Marguareis e Alpi Marittime. Gesso, Vermenagna, Pesio, territorio della Bisalta , PiùEventi 2018, pp. 129 130.
  • Cantieri e documenti del barocco. Cuneo e le sue valli , catalogo della mostra a cura di Giovanni Romano e Gelsomina Spione, L’Artistica Editrice 2003.
  • AA.VV. (a cura di), Parrocchia Visitazione di Maria Vergine – Roccavione , Cuneo, Ed. Diocesi di Cuneo, 2001.
  • Maurizio Ristorto, Storia civile e religiosa di Roccavione , Cuneo, Tip. Saste, 1971.

Useful links

diocesicuneo.it