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Candelo (Biella)- Church of Santa Maria Maggiore
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Show to visit in the Biella area: |
 The Church of Santa Maria Maggiore is the oldest of the churches in Candelo and also the most particular.
Erected before the year 1000, it underwent many changes over the centuries.
Externally, its heterogeneous structure can be noticed, made of bricks, squared granite stones and river pebbles. Depending on the precise part, the ones or the others prevail.
The façade is plastered, unlike the other external surfaces, very rough. It is enriched by a small portico at the entrance, a rose window placed above it and two round windows beside it. In apical position there is a large triangular pediment.
In the past there were also two side entrances, which were then walled up. Curiously, inside the two matching internal doors still exist.
The most characteristic external element is nevertheless represented by the high bell tower, built in the sixteenth century, then raised at the beginning of the seventeenth and surmounted by a very tall spire.
Also worthy of note is the 18th century door.
The interior of the church, because of the many changes made, has largely lost its Romanesque character, still recognizable only in the columns that support the internal arches and in some fifteenth-century frescoes left, especially those on the cross vault of the right aisle, in front the first chapel (dedicated to the Madonna of Oropa, Fig. 4), attributed to Gaspare de Fornerio da Ponderano and depicting the four Doctors of the Church. Unfortunately, a too invasive restoration has substantially distorted them, even though it has made them much more impressive at first glance.
Overall the interior has a structure that confuses the visitor and makes the church appear larger than it is. This effect is due in particular to the chapel of Santa Marta and of the Holy Shroud, the second on the right (Fig. 3). Its inner surface is in fact comparable with that of the naves. It was built in 1586 and was the seat of the homonymous confraternity.
Originally it was separated from the rest of the church by a wall, but in 1823 the wall was replaced by the current marble balustrade.
The wide choir (of the seventeenth century) is separated by the rest of the chapel by a high wooden balustrade that extends on both sides of the stucco altar of 1843 up to the side walls. The wall and ceiling decorations are from the second half of the nineteenth century.
On the left side there are three chapels, this time all of normal size.
The first one is dedicated to the saints Joseph and Antony from Padova. Above a recent altar there is the primitive wooden ancon of 1677 with twisted columns with vine shoots climbing on them. The altarpiece is represented by a painting of the mid-seventeenth century depicting the Virgin with Child presented at St. Anthony of Padua, with St. Joseph and two angels in the background.
The second (Fig. 5) is dedicated to San Carlo. The wooden ancon of 1681 above the altar is a work of Giovanni Augusto Serpentiere. At the center of it, in a niche, a wooden statue of San Carlo. On the right wall a canvas depicting the Virgin of Oropa between San Carlo and San Giuseppe.
The third chapel, located on the bottom, to the left of the presbytery, is a little smaller and is dedicated to St. John the Baptist. Built between 1606 and 1619, on the back wall there is a 1622 painting depicting the Holy Family with Saint Elizabeth and Saint John the Baptist Child.
The presbytery is slightly raised compared to the rest of the church and is bordered by a beautiful polychrome marble balustrade from 1819. The high altar, in precious marble, is from 1773. On it a wooden frame inlaid and gilded, decorated with swirls and heads of cherubs, again a work by Serpentiere. The golden and silver cross of the tabernacle is by the same artist.
On the back wall of the apse there is a canvas by Carlo Bianconi from Bologna from 1779 depicting the Assumption.
Important also the Crucifixion hanging on the left wall of the presbytery, work of 1572 by Boniforte Oldoni.
The choir is currently without an organ, as the one that was present was demolished in 1932. The decorations of its balustrade (three painted panels depicting musical instruments) as well as the pastel-colored vegetable-themed decorations in the nave are from the nineteenth century.
Also worthy of note is the pulpit, also attributed to the Serpentiere and consisting of a series of panels, decorated with stylized plant motifs and separated by caryatids.
It is worth remembering, finally, that the small square in front of the church until the first half of the nineteenth century was a cemetery.
Categories: Places of historical value of artistic value
Via Castellengo, 2, 13878 Candelo BI |
Church of Santa Maria Maggiore: Further pictures in the section Photography |