ABBAZIA DI FRUTTUARIA

Founded at the dawn of the 11th century by Guglielmo da Volpiano, the Benedictine Abbey of Fruttuaria is a stone palimpsest that tells a thousand years of history. After a period of decline in the 15th century and subsequent suppression, the complex was reborn in 1585 as a collegiate church, only to be radically transformed in 1770. It was then that Vittorio Amedeo delle Lanze commissioned a new, monumental church - the design of which is attributed to Bernardo Antonio Vittone - overlapping the ancient medieval structures.

The beating heart of the original building lies in its symbolic architecture:

• The Structure: Three short naves intersected by a transept, overlooked by five apsidal chapels. This configuration allowed several monks to celebrate the liturgy simultaneously.
• Decorations: The walls of the transept still retain vivid faux-marble frescoes, while the precious 11th-century mosaic floor - among the oldest in Piedmont together with those in Sezzadio - was brought to light in 1979.
• The Spiritual Fulcrum: The Altar of the Cross dominated the space, protected by the striking Rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre.

Today, an ingenious iron-cement slab separates the upper church, still consecrated, from the underground museum route. Here, among geometric mosaics and zoomorphic figures, the visitor can literally walk through history, in the place where he chose to retire and die, in 1015, Arduino of Ivrea, first King of Italy.