Church of Our Lady of the Angels (Chiesa della Madonna degli Angeli)

Highlights

Church built in the mid-seventeenth century.

It benefited from restoration work in the early 20th century.

This church rises in the center of the village and is dedicated to the Our Lady of the Angels.

It was built in 1653 by a certain Giuseppe Novo, who by istrument rog. Muratore dated September 27 of that year also constituted its benefice with the condiction that it be assigned to a priest or cleric of the Novo family.

Here is how Mons. Della Chiesa in his Pastoral Visit of 1654 speaks of the new church: "In the merchant village there is the chapel under the title of S. Maria degli Angeli. This chapel is of mediocre capacity. A modest statue of the Virgin Mary with two small angels included in the wall... ".

Less than fifty years after its construction, the tiny church, at the expense of the first benefactor D. Giovanni Audino Novo, was rebuilt in its current structure and equipped with the epistle depicting the Blessed Virgin among the Angels, the same that is still exhibited today to the veneration of the faithful.

The burden of the benefice was 96 masses a year; one every Saturday to be said in the chapel, the others on any day is church. For about two hundred years the benefit of the lords "Novis et Maiolis" passed later in enjoyment to members of the same Novo family.

During the Napoleonic period the benefit was forfeited by the French government. However, following the law 9 germile year IX, which allowed the release of simple benefits and gave the right to the respective patrons to return to them by paying a special tax, the cleric Novo Giuseppe redeemed the benefit in question and joined it to its private assets.

On December 18, 1831, with the testament, Villa said Novo cleric ordered that all the property formerly belonging to the benefice of the B. V. degli Angeli were to be assigned half to his nephews and half to the Sacristy of the parish for "the fulfillment of the burdens" which were fixed in the celebration of a mass read every Saturday and 25 others in the year.

The portion assigned to the Sacristy was 14 days and 96 plates whose income, in 1883, rose to 800 liras per year.

These lands were joined to the Parochial Benefit. In the report for the pastoral visit of 1883 we read: "The church is of common style, capable of 80 people. The walls are damp, but well sheltered. It has a small bell. The administrators are those of the parish. It is not called daily or festive mass, but only a few times according to the table of legacies ".

The church was decorated and embellished throughout in 1926 thanks mainly to the contribution of the family of the late Cav. Giacomo Ferrero. The floor was redone, the old door replaced, and furniture and furnishings were provided for the altar.