San Giorgio Church
On the hill dominating Valperga Canavese, near the castle at its
border, there is the monumental church dedicated to San Giorgio.
The most ancient document we have about it dates back to 1150, but the
Church already existed at that time and it was the chapel of the nearby
castle owned by the Lords of Valperga and at the same time the parish
church of the village situated below. The bell tower, with its elegant
marble mullioned windows with two lights can also be dated back to that
period.
The Church is exposed to the East. According to the criteria of the
Romanesque architecture, the entrance is in the West and the apse in
the East, which represents the passage of the believer from darkness to
light. It is a building with a nave and two aisles, without transept,
40 meters long and 22 meters wide, the result of the blending of
different building periods.
At the entrance of the Church you can notice that the abse axis is
slightly shifted on the left with respect to the nave axis. It seems
not to be a mistake, but rather a symbolic representation of the
inclination of the head of Christ on the Cross.
In the 18th century a wall was built and many interventions carried out in the attempt to make the church straight.
The restoration which began in 1937/1939 will give back ancient
frescoes (by Giovanni di Pietro de Scotis from Piacenza, maybe dating
back to 1462).
During a plague (maybe the one of 1630) the church was used as a
lazaretto, and for sanitary reasons the frescoes were covered with
lime. This allowed to save the frescoes from degradation.
The whole church of San Giorgio was also painted in fresco outside, and
it was enriched with reliefs in fired brick: the only witness which has
remained is the scene of the Adoration of the Magi.
