Fondazione Fabbrica Lapidea di San Gaudenzio – 1552
Since 1552, we have been protecting and preserving the Basilica Complex of San Gaudenzio, which includes the Basilica by Pellegrino Pellegrini, the Bell Tower by Benedetto Alfieri, and the Dome by Alessandro Antonelli.
The Fabbrica Lapidea of the Basilica of San Gaudenzio
Fabbriche (or Fabbricerie) are institutions provided for by Canon Law since the 5th century, later incorporated into Civil Law, in which either a foundational nature (fabrica ecclesiae) or an associative one (consilium fabricae) is recognized. Their task is to manage, maintain, and restore the churches under their responsibility.
However, the significance of the cult of San Gaudenzio, first Bishop and Patron of the Diocese, extends geographically well beyond the city of Novara: the responsibilities for the upkeep of the Basilica of San Gaudenzio were therefore codified and spread across a vast territory, separating the funding channels for the sacra tecta (the building) from those for the luminaria ecclesiae (utilities). The latter were funded by the so-called Offerta della Cera (Wax Offering), which civil communities across a wide area around Novara (roughly from Oleggio to Mortara) continued to pay until the 1970s. While the utilities were covered by revenue external to the fabbriceria, the task of preserving the sacred building had to be funded solely from the Fabbrica’s own budget: because its own resources were reserved for the building alone, and not also for utilities, the word “lapidea” (“of stone”) was added to “Fabbrica,” a part standing for the whole.
From 1577, the important work of building the new Basilica was added to its ongoing duties of care and maintenance: the fabbriceria was to have received compensation from the Spanish government for the demolition of the earlier Basilica and the use of its materials for fortifications, but this compensation never arrived; in its place, the same government granted the imposition of a local tax of six denari on every pound of meat sold in the city of Novara (the so-called Sesino), on condition that the proceeds be allocated to the Fabbrica di San Gaudenzio. The oldest surviving archival documents on the Fabbrica Lapidea di San Gaudenzio date back to 1552, one year before the announced demolition of the ancient basilica was completed. The members of the Fabbrica, who at that time cared for the original church outside the city walls, would soon after turn their attention to the church of San Vincenzo, purchased by the Canons of San Gaudenzio in order to transfer there the relics and furnishings from the extramural Basilica. For more than forty years, the Fabbrica Lapidea worked to improve and adapt the church — rededicated to San Gaudenzio — to its new function.
In 1577, construction of the new Basilica began, expanding the area occupied by the parish church of San Vincenzo through the purchase of several neighboring properties. Once the nave was completed and the new Basilica consecrated (13 December 1590), the Fabbrica Lapidea turned its attention to the transept and apse (1659), the Scurolo (1711), the Bell Tower (1773), and finally the Dome (1888). The work of the fabbriceria continues today, caring for and preserving the monumental complex.
In 1535, upon the death of Francesco II Sforza, the Duchy of Milan was occupied by the Spanish forces of Emperor Charles V: Novara thus became a frontier city, and the emperor decided to turn it into a fortress. All the districts outside the city walls were then dismantled. This led to the disappearance of the ancient Basilica of San Gaudenzio, which stood outside the city’s defensive walls (in what is now Corso XX Settembre).
The body of the patron saint was brought to the Church of San Vincenzo and placed in a large stone reliquary of Roman origin. The urn was covered with a reused gravestone, and the relics were placed beneath the main altar of the Church of San Vincenzo, which from then on came to be known as San Gaudenzio. Around 1753, the stone urn was walled into the base of the present bell tower, where it still stands today.
The decision to build the Basilica of San Gaudenzio within the city was made in 1560, and on 9 September Pius IV granted permission for its construction. In 1561, the funds raised amounted to over 500 lire: as a term of comparison, a laborer’s daily wage at the time was one lira. The present-day Basilica of San Gaudenzio was built within the circle of the city walls, on the site previously occupied by the church of San Vincenzo. The new temple was raised in solemn, grand form starting in 1577, based on a design traditionally attributed to Pellegrino Pellegrini, known as il Tibaldi, the trusted architect of San Carlo Borromeo. The church was consecrated on 13 December 1590 by Bishop Speciano.
In 1743, the Fabbrica Lapidea decided to complete the Basilica, which still lacked a bell tower, having only a temporary bell turret placed on the southwest pier intended to support the Dome. Following the damage that the vibrations of the bells were causing to the church, the decision was approved to build a new bell tower on the foundations already planned in Pellegrini’s design and laid at the same time as the Basilica itself.
Benedetto Alfieri1753 and was suspended in 1773, even before the bell chamber was finished, due to a lack of funds.
An inscription by Guido Ferrari (Cives – turrim admirandi operis – extruxerunt – ad sumptus supererogato – in libram carnis semisse — “The citizens built this tower of admirable workmanship, the costs being met by a levy of half [a denaro] per pound of meat sold”) records the city’s contribution to the expense of its construction (the sesino tax). The bell tower, 92 meters tall, rises as an irregular prism from a square base (10.18 meters per side). Its summit is adorned with a crowning group of bronze angels, cast by the Novara-born G. Battista Agazzini. Today, the bell tower lacks the gilded festoons of its spire, removed during the Second World War. Two Leonardo-style spiral staircases of 300 steps, in a late-Baroque style, lead to the bell chamber without ever crossing paths.
The Bell Tower blends perfectly with the pre-existing building, ideally linking two great periods in the history of architecture: the Renaissance and the late Baroque of the end of the eighteenth century. The work was completed in 1786, nineteen years after Alfieri’s death. The bell tower of the Basilica of San Gaudenzio, one of the architect’s most interesting works, became a model for many subsequent Piedmontese bell towers and was intended to serve as the main entrance to the emerging Basilica Museum. Alfieri’s Bell Tower cost a sum of 400,000 lire.
On 21 May 1840, the Fabbrica Lapidea resolved to resume work on completing the Basilica, with the construction of the Dome and the commissioning of the design to the architect Antonelli. He responded with his acceptance on 17 June:
“Deeply moved by the trust placed in me for drawing up the design of a Dome to be raised above the crossing of the magnificent temple of San Gaudenzio, I gladly accept this honorable commission, promising to spare nothing so that the work may be as free of imperfection as possible, and may correspond, to the best of my ability, with the overall architecture of the building.”
Alessandro Antonelli
In 1840, Alessandro Antonelli set out to tackle the design of the dome of the Basilica of San Gaudenzio in Novara, with the aim of achieving through masonry the same results made possible by the use of cast iron and steel, thereby continuing the Italian building tradition still rooted in the use of traditional materials. The history of the project is complex, unfolding along an intricate path that would lead the Piedmontese architect to create an architectural object that can be considered unique in the Italian building landscape. The first design for the dome was presented to the municipality in 1841. Work began three years later, but in 1855 and again in 1860 Antonelli presented further designs that raised the dome’s height, until 1863, the year the work was completed. Only the spire remained, which was built between 1876 and 1878.
The Dome of the Basilica of San Gaudenzio commands interest first of all for its size — reaching a height of 125 meters from the church floor to the top of the statue, with an internal diameter of 14 meters and an external diameter of 22 meters — and then for the boldness of its form and the complex construction system that makes it the tallest masonry building in Italy. The construction is astonishing and daring when one considers that, at such a scale, Antonelli designed and built an outer dome “in sheet,” that is, a thin shell with a structural thickness of only about 12 centimeters (the width of a single brick), stiffened by ribs and hoops — both in brick — arranged in a system of “meridians” and “parallels.” It is precisely the parallels that are the structural elements resolving the problem of the tensile stress to which the cap is subjected. The Piedmontese architect succeeded in embodying that “genius loci” underlying the construction of the Dome, one of the largest in the world relative to the small city in which it stands: Antonelli conquered the sky of Novara, leaving behind one of the boldest and most representative monuments of the entire nineteenth century.
The “S.O.S. Coperture” (“S.O.S. Roofing”) call for proposals, funded by Fondazione Cariplo, covered priority interventions for safety improvements, structural upgrades, restoration, and maintenance. The work carried out at the Basilica primarily concerns the restoration of the roof above the Chapter Archive, in the room located above the Canons’ Sacristy, at the junction of the transept and the southern side of the apse. Due to water infiltration into the Chapter Archive room, the Fabbrica Lapidea initiated a recovery and extraordinary maintenance project. The roof, rebuilt in the early 1990s, deteriorated almost immediately due to bird activity and occasional overflow from the upper gutters. This roof sits lower than the transept and apse roofs, and in heavy rain the upper channels spill water onto the roof slopes covering the Chapter Archive, creating a cascade that the terracotta tile covering cannot handle, consequently flooding the attic space. The substantial body of documents making up the Chapter Archive of San Gaudenzio has fortunately been preserved in the space that has housed it from the start. Precisely for this reason, the building housing it deserves priority attention, so that the Archive can be maintained and protected within the context that gave rise to it.
The “S.O.S. Coperture” project, which Fondazione Cariplo chose to support, meets the need to halt the deterioration of the Archive’s vault through a systematic set of works that will give the roof adequate, reliable, and effective watertightness in light of current climate conditions. Given the genuine, original relationship between contents and container, the work of safeguarding must extend to both elements. While the documentary material has always received careful attention (including an extensive and valuable reorganization and cataloguing effort that lasted decades, directed by Canon Prof. Agostino Temporelli), the objectives of “S.O.S. Coperture” could not fail to include enabling similar oversight of the attic space and the roofing system. Access to the attics is possible via the original walkway along the interior cornice of the basilica’s nave, which however lacks a safety line. Hence the need to equip the cornice with a lifeline compliant with legal requirements, along with the opportunity to restore access to the cornice from inside the church, on the north side, so as to avoid the long (and dark) route currently required through external stairs and attics.
