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Abbey of Saints Peter and Andrew: cloister
Abbey of Saints Peter and Andrew: cloister
Christ Pantocrator in the Chapel of Sant'Eldrado
Christ Pantocrator in the Chapel of Sant'Eldrado
Abbey archaeological museum
Abbey archaeological museum
The showcase dedicated to glass finds
The showcase dedicated to glass finds
The parish church of Santo Stefano
The parish church of Santo Stefano
Via Susa,19, 10050 Novalesa
The village of Novalesa, located at the head of the Val Cenischia, has always tied its history to that of the millennial abbey of Saints Peter and Andrew and the Moncenisio pass. Until the construction of the current road to the pass, ordered by Napoleon Bonaparte, the village of Novalesa marked the endpoint of the carriage road coming from Turin, from which the Royal Road branched off, a mule track still passable today leading to Moncenisio.
Numerous hotels, inns, and reference points for the many travelers who stopped here were lined up along the ancient Via Maestra, still the heart of the community today.
The traces are still visible today not only in the traditional architectures of the houses facing the central street of the village and within the alleys and courtyards but also from a notable array of frescoes embellishing the facades. Next to the parish church, the frescoed cycle depicting Vices, Virtues, and Infernal Pains by the master Gioffrey from 1714 can be seen, featuring late medieval iconographic models. A short distance away, we find the House of Frescoes (14th century), an old hotel with a facade displaying a series of coats of arms of the House of Savoy and other European states of the time; and the hotel where Napoleon Bonaparte stayed, the Ecu de France / Epée Royale with its large staircase with wooden balustrades. At the end of Via Maestra, the chapel of San Sebastiano (17th century) houses the permanent artistic Nativity scene of Novalesa.
The parish church of Santo Stefano (13th century), rebuilt in 1684, preserves numerous art testimonies, making it one of the most significant ecclesiastical monuments in the Susa Valley. The parish church holds exceptional works of art, notably the refined polyptych from the late 15th century attributed to the Toulouse-born Antoine de Lonhy; and five paintings donated in 1805 by Napoleon Bonaparte to the Hospice of Moncenisio and subsequently transferred: the Deposition attributed to the Cremonese workshop of Giulio Campi; the Adoration of the Magi, a school copy of Rubens; the Adoration of the Shepherds by François Lemoyne (1721); the Crucifixion of Saint Peter, an ancient copy of the original Caravaggio from 1601; and the Deposition of Christ from the Cross, a replica of an original by Dirck van Baburen, the Martyrdom of Saint Stephen by the Cherasco-born Sebastiano Taricco. In the presbytery area is preserved one of the oldest artifacts of the Abbey of Novalesa, the reliquary urn of St. Eldrado (12th century), a masterpiece of Mosan-Rhenish goldsmithing.
Next to the parish church, the chapel of the Holy Sacrament (1597) has housed since 2002 the Alpine Religious Art Museum, one of the venues of the Diocesan Museum System: collecting jewelry, textiles, and paintings from the parish church and the chapels of the Novalesa territory.
The abbey of Saints Peter and Andrew (726 AD) is located a few kilometers from the village of Novalesa and stands at the edge of the transit route for the Moncenisio pass. The centuries-old path can be seen through the buildings of the monastic complex, which show the signs of the constructional and decorative events that have taken place from the early Middle Ages to the 19th century. Since 2009, with the opening of the Archaeological Museum, the Abbey of Novalesa is currently one of the European monastic complexes with the best-known material structures within which the spiritual history of the community has unfolded over the centuries.
