Information about Crescentino in the Province of Vercelli
It is certain that in the area where the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Palazzo stands today known as “al palazzo”,, a burial ground of cremated remains and the ruins of ancient foundations made from large pebbles and mortar were found during excavations. According to tradition this place was the home, in Roman times, to a palacium which acted as a road defence in the area where the Dora Baltea joined the Po. Here, one of the oldest parish churches of the Eusebian diocese must have stood, dedicated to the Madonna, and on the foundations of which the current Sanctuary of the Madonna del Palazzo was built in the XVI century.
The medieval history of Crescentino formally started in 1242 with the construction of the free town by the borough of Vercelli. The place name has older origins however: it is the diminutive of the personal Latin name Crescens, very common in the areas of Novara and Biella and attributed most commonly to the servants. In 1310, during his travels in Italy the emperor Henry VII freed the town from its pledge of dependency on the Borough of Vercelli and granted it to his supporter Riccardo Tizzoni. Passing under the ontrol of the Savoy at the beginning of the 1400s the town became a fortified stronghold, but its walls were demolished after the French conquest at the beginning of the XVIII century.
What remains of the medieval memories of the ancient town is its castramentum layout, limited, until the beginning of the nineteenth century to the area included between the artificial canals.
Piazza Vische, also known as the Tower, is the pulsing hub of the town where, until the beginning of the Seventeenth century the Tizzoni family palace stood, destroyed in the fire of 1529.
The naming of the square after the Canavese town of Vische dates back to the XVII century and was to pay homage to the alliance made between the Crescentinesi and Vischesi during the battles against their respective feudal lords. The square shaped Civic Tower, was built between the end of the XIV and the beginning of the XV centuries with its characteristic eight windows with double span arches pointed towards the outside. The bell-tower holds the biggest bell in the province of Vercelli: the so-called Crescentina, weighing 25 quintals, was forged by the Mazzola brothers of Valduggia and donated to the city by the parish priest of San Grisate, don Giuseppe Bianco, in 1958. In the square, where the weekly market has been held since the XV century, one may admire the sixteenth century facade of the Parish church of the Blessed Virgin of the Assumption built in its original form in the XIII century at the same time as the founding of the free town.
The original building belonging to the borough was built in 1546 to repair the damage incurred during the battles with the French and Spanish. The choir was completed in 1580 under the supervision of the master builder from Turin, Antonio Botolo. The old bell tower was demolished and rebuilt in 1906 to a design by the engineer Canetti, while a more general restoration was performed in 1927 by the engineer Giovanni Silvestrini from Turin. With its rectangular layout the church is divided into three naves which four side altars in white marble open onto, the work of the nineteenth century sculptor Antonio Baggiani, as well as the baptistery with the octagonal based wooden fount.
Continuing along the right is the marble altar of San Crescentino, inside which a silver urn dating back to 1678 conserves the relics of the martyr discovered during the excavations of the catacomb of Saint Ciriaca (1660) in Rome. The next Altar is to Saint Philip Neri, with a painting by an unknown hand showing the Ecstasy of Saint Francis, followed by the Altar of Intercession or of the Cleansed Souls, with the painting of the Madonna del Carmine by Amedeo Augero di Verolengo (1858) and the altar to the Holy Virgin of the Rosary, the altar-piece of which is attributed to Guglielmo Caccia, known as “Moncalvo” (1568 ca. –1625). The main altar in baroque style (1723) is dominated by the large altar-piece of the Assumption by C. F. Beaumonnt (1694-1766), purchased in 1743. The decoration of the vaults dates back to the beginning of the 1900s.
Leaving the parish church and glancing back at the medieval layout of the porticoes of Via Mazzini in correspondence with the Caretto and Graziano residences, the itinerary continues along via Dappiano, which runs north of the parish church. Here, one arrives at the Confraternity of Saint Bernardino, the oldest of the Crescentine confraternities, documented as early as 1286.
The present, early sixteenth century building of which traces remain in the bell-tower, was rebuilt between the end of the XVII and the beginning of the XVIII centuries. The outside walls conserve the original bare brick structure; the wooden entrance portal was made by local carvers at the beginning of the 1700s. The linear interior has two corridors running along the side walls which recall the women’s gallery of the Romanesque-gothic style. The series of frescoes on the life of Saint Joseph are by Carlo Martini (1860), but the most important paintings are along the wall behind the altar: to the left is Moncalvo’s Nativity (1589), in the middle is the Coronation of the Virgin by Carlo Orazio Sacco, a pupil of the same Moncalvo (1608), and to the right Saint John the Evangelist by Giovanni Battista Cairo of Casale Monferrato (1654).
Before leaving the town it’s worth making a last stop at the cemetery church of Saint Peter. In Romanesque style, it was built between the XI and XII centuries by the Benedictine monks of San Genuario, so that the faithful from the adjacent village known as Casalis Archoati (a rural village disposed in an arch shape around the church itself) could gather there.
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