Chiesa di San Donato, Barolo historical timeline

The beginning: a private chapel. San Donato started as an ancient cappella gentilizia of the Falletti — the private chapel of the family in the castle above. It was enlarged subsequently in order to open it to public worship. That sequence matters: the village did not build a church and give it to a family, the family had a chapel and the village was let into it.

The Romanesque layer. The building is of Romanesque plan. Nothing of that is now legible, but it places the origin of the site well before any of the dates below.

The 15th century. One source dates the church to the XV secolo. This is the figure most often repeated.

The mid-16th century. The Romanesque church was transformed in the 1500s, and the older church had already been restructured in the middle of the Cinquecento before the rebuilding that followed. This is also the century in which the burial vault under the presbytery comes into use.

The first half of the 18th century. The church that stands now dates to the prima metà del Settecento, and is a reconstruction of the ancient one. The three naves, the octagonal dome and the six side altars belong to this build.

Until 1864. The vault beneath the presbytery held the feudal lords until the extinction of the house. The Falletti line at Barolo ended with the death of the marchesa Juliette Colbert in 1864, after which the castle passed to the Opera Pia Barolo and, eventually, to the village itself.

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