Church of Saint Mary Magdalene

The latter is the Turin architect (1705-1770) who designed the church of Santa Maria Maddalena in Alba.

Indeed, the astonishing and persuasive purposes of the 18th-century Baroque have immediate effectiveness, in a truly pregnant “spectacularity” of structural, spatial and decorative solutions.

But for Vittone these characterizations are accompanied by the problematic nature of the location of the buildings in the urban context.

The facade

Thus the former convent church of Magdalene, on central Vittorio Emanuele (“Maestra”) Street in Alba, is a defining presence as well as integrated in unison.

The (unfinished) terracotta facade is now a defining reference for views of the urban axis, but not too overpowering; likewise, the visual warmth of the “exposed” brick in its masonry articulations is an attractive but somewhat discreet element.

It is the architect Vittone himself who directly, in his Diverse Instructions, presents us with difficulties and characteristics of his design for the Church of the Magdalene, completed in 1749.

The constraints of the urban pre-existences and also the strong suggestion derived from the necessary presence of the high altar (erected in 1689-1690 by Giuseppe Maria Carlone and Francesco Piazoli of Turin) with the urn of the body of Blessed Margaret of Savoy-Acaia, played a decisive role in the Victorian conception.

This work of his in Alba follows, in executive chronological sequence, the church of S. Chiara in Turin (1745) and the parish church in Foglizzo (1748), precedes the church of the same name in Vercelli (1750), that of S. Antonio abate in Turin (1750) and that of S. Maria Assunta in Carignano (also 1750), interspersed with his design drawings for the convent and church of S. Maria Maddalena in Mondovì (1749) and for a chapel in the Annunziata in Turin (also dated 1749).

The partial solution of the facade of the Alba church (the building was not completed externally) has a sinuous and refined presence, derived from Borromini and more directly from Guarini.

Moreover, a persistence in Vittone’s religious building is the concave-convex movement. Earlier references to which to compare the elevation of the sacred building in Alba may be that of Guarino Guarini’s Carignano palace (erected 1679-1685) in Turin and especially the main front of the Turin church of the Immaculate Conception, still by Guarini (built in several stages between 1673 and 1697).

The wall conformations, which were to receive the stone slab cladding, mark in regular contrasts of chiaroscuro alignments, projections, vertical and horizontal elements.

The geometrically arranged “openings,” symmetrically arranged, appear as so many breaks in the continuous straight line of bricks. Only the ornamentation, the wide dark of the portal and the central lunette in the facade break such horizons, moved by the overall sinuosity and the interspersing of the pilasters.

The hall has an overall rectangular plan, but with the prevalent ellipse of the dome. The structure is then lengthened in the large chancel (also almost rectangular, designed with architect Carlo Giacinto Roero count of Guarene and Vezza).

Internally it is flanked by the chapel of Blessed Margaret and a side altar. The voluminous room is dominated by the elliptical dome; so too is the oval (but much smaller) vault above the chancel.

The main space problems inside, the vast environment with the vault in an oval shape and the relationship to the considerable, partly pre-existing chorus, are resolved by Vittone with distinct planivolumetric installations, shielded (as required by monastic seclusion) by the monumental high altar and wrought-iron gratings that also attenuate, almost to the point of visually nullifying it, the irregularity of oblique course of the axis of Paruzza Street.

Light penetrates from the central lantern, radiating all around as far as the half-light of the chapel of Blessed Margaret of Savoy, which forms a lateral “breakthrough” in the uniform scope of the enveloping rhythm of the great dome frescoed by Milocco.

Also painted “a fresco” are the oval vault of the chancel (whose overall architectural design rises to further merit) and that, sensitively traversed by three lateral window splays, of the vast chancel, which, however, is the design work of 1732-1734 in collaboration with count architect Carlo Giacinto Roero (1675-1749), decorated by other artists.

The complex of the former Magdalene women’s monastery fits with dimensional peremptoriness into the urban fabric of the city.

The vast present courtyard, bordered by sleeves built on 2/3 of the perimeter at a constant height (two stories above ground with porticoes), was divided by an inner sleeve that determined two large courtyards connected by respective porches and doorways.

The former was larger, cloistered and representative; while the latter was intended for service activities.

Consequent to the nineteenth-century demolition of the dividing intermediate sleeve, a vast conchive surface is revealed, almost a quadrangular square, which is also overlooked, in the manner of a twentieth-century backdrop, by the building (also facing Accademia Street) erected in different phases between 1932 and 1937 on successive designs by surveyor Cesare Borgi.

Introduced by the eighteenth-century wooden doorway (with 18 panels carved in walnut, where the two largest bear in the center the insignia of three crossed arrows, a symbol linked to the devotion of Blessed Margaret of Savoy), one enters directly into the elliptical nave.

The frescoes

The visitor’s attention is certainly drawn to the large frescoes in the oval dome. This vast and “spectacular” fresco painting is the work of Turin painter Michele Antonio Milocco (1690-1772), made around 1748-1749.

Milocco (or Milloc), author of grotesques at the Royal Palace and Villa della Regina in Turin, would later be called to Alba in 1760 to illustrate the Glory of St. Theobald in the chapel dedicated to the saint in the cathedral.

Here in the Church of the Magdalene is the Glory of the Blessed Margaret the widely developed theme for the spacious elliptical surface, with dynamic, allusive compositional solutions, populated with single or grouped figures in a truly grand Baroque vortex.

The vaults

So too, the oval vault of the chancel is attributed, not without uncertainty, to Milocco himself. The fresco, with less emphasis is more modest in size, illustrates the Triumph of St. Mary Magdalene, repeating the usual compositional pattern of concentric circles of clouds and figures.

More convincing, of remarkable scenic effect, are the grand Baroque perspectives on the choir vault, completed in 1734 by painter Giacomo Guglielmo Rapa (or Rappa), previously engaged in both the Guarene castle and the vault of the Church of the SS. Annunziata, also in Guarene.

Here in the work in Alba, in the large painted surface, bordered by a strong cornice, in addition to the complex quadratures and some rocaille motifs, four monochrome angels can be discerned in respective ovals, presenting respective symbols of St. Mary Magdalene and Blessed Margaret of Savoy.

In contrast, the frescoes on the walls of the same room can be dated around the middle of the 18th century and assigned to the painters Matteo and Francesco Casoli of Guarene (Francesco,1704-1766, also active in the Guarene castle in 1729-1730 and possibly again in 1752-1753).

Also, the large chancel room houses forty-eight sought-after walnut stalls with volume-decorated armrests, kneelers, and backs inlaid with cross, shell, and diamond point motifs. It is valuable 18th-century work by an unknown author.

The crucifix

Above, on the tribune toward the back wall, the large walnut crucifix is clearly visible, marked by residual, large areas with original stucco for the pre-existing polychrome painting. It is a fine work, a pinnacle of late Gothic statuary in the Alba area and the entire province of Cuneo.

The Crucifix comes from the underground burial ground of the monastery and is the work of a Lombard sculptor, datable to 1440-1450. It was restored in 1969 by the relevant state superintendency, with operations of cleaning, full wood repair and consolidation of the partially painted surface.

On the opposite side, in the section of the chancel directly behind thechurch’s high altar is centrally located a large 17th-century painting by an unknown author depicting Jesus Christ and St. Mary Magdalene.

Returning to the church, the high altar should be admired, made in 1689-90 by “pica stone master builders” Giuseppe Maria Carlone and Francesco Piazoli, from Turin but from respective “Lugano” families.

Interlocutor to the contract for this work, representing the convent nuns, was the Alba native Francesco Domenico Barisano, a doctor of the House of Savoy and author of the book Vita della B. Margarita di Savoia Marchesa di Monferrato detta la Grande, published in 1692.

The altarpiece on the high altar

Also, in the church are worthy of attention:

• the altarpiece on the high altar (donated by King Charles Felix of Savoy in 1825), depicting St. Mary Magdalene and made by the Turin painter Giovanni Battista Biscarra (1790-1851);
• the 19th-century statues on either side of the same altar, depicting The Blessed Margaret the Nun and St. Agnes of Montepulciano;
• the late-empire embossed silver urn (a notable gift from Maria Cristina, widow of King Charles Felix of Savoy), made in 1840 by the Turin goldsmith Pietro Borrani to the design of the engineer Alfonso Dupuy and placed behind the altar of the side chapel of the Savoy blessed, above the earlier 17th-century urn;
• the 18th-century altarpiece, by an unknown Piedmontese painter, on the side altar of St. Rose, depicting the Madonna and Child, St. Dominic, St. Vincent Ferrer, St. Rose of Lima and angels.

Finally, the sought-after 18th-century wooden doorway outside on Paruzza Street is notable.