Chiesa di San Martino, La Morra site features

The church stands on a small square at the top of the village, which is Garove's doing — the commission specifically called for a sacred building composed on a public space in an elevated position over the settlement. On a ridge village, that means it is the thing you see first and from furthest away.

The casa canonica, the priest's house, was added in 1713. It faces the same little square and communicates with the presbytery through the sacristy, so church and clergy house are one connected body of building rather than two.

Inside, the eye goes to the high altar and its pala of 1715 — the Madonna and Child between saints Martin and Crispin by Giovanni Carlo Aliberti. The altar itself carries an inscription naming the man who paid for it.

The vault of the central nave is painted, and those paintings are not original: they are Luigi Morgari's, 1879–1880, commissioned after the fire. There are side chapels, with their own vaults, also repainted in the 19th century.

The flanks of the building have enlarged openings, a 19th-century alteration — the church takes more light now than Garove gave it.

Garove's siting

The brief was to place a sacred building on a public space, in an elevated position over the village. In a settlement strung along a ridge, that decision is why the church reads from the vineyards below.

The Aliberti altarpiece, 1715

On the high altar: the Madonna and Child with saints Martin and Crispin, by Giovanni Carlo Aliberti. Martin is the village's patron; Crispin is the patron of shoemakers.

The inscription on the high altar

The church and the canonica were built at the community's expense, but the high altar was financed by a certain "Messer Bartolomeo Mascarello" — and the altar carries an inscription that says so. A village paid for its church; one man paid for its altar, and made sure it was written down.

The casa canonica of 1713

Built onto the little square and joined to the presbytery through the sacristy, so that the priest could reach the church without going outside.

Luigi Morgari's nave vault, 1879–1880

What you look up at is a replacement. Morgari was commissioned for the present paintings of the central nave vault and other retouching after the fire.

The marks of 1874

The tribune and the organ were damaged and destroyed by the flames. What stands in their place is post-fire.