Santa Caterina is a

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

-style,

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

church located on Piazza Castello #36, in

Casale Monferrato Casale Monferrato () is a town in the Piedmont region of Italy, in the province of Alessandria. It is situated about east of Turin on the right bank of the Po, where the river runs at the foot of the Montferrat hills. Beyond the river lies the v ...

Province of Alessandria The Province of Alessandria ( it, Provincia di Alessandria; pms, Provincia ëd Lissandria; in Piedmontese of Alessandria: ''Provinsa ëd Lissändria'') is an Italian province, with a population of some 425,000, which forms the southeastern part o ...

, region of

Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

, Italy.

Casale Monferrato-chiesa santa caterina-complesso

Casale Monferrato-chiesa santa caterina-facciata

History

This church was erected for Dominican nuns and consecrated in 1726. The architect was

Giacomo Zanetti Giacomo Zanetti (c.1696–1735), born probably in Lugano, was an Italian master builder and architect active in Casale Monferrato. He was responsible for some of the most interesting baroque buildings constructed in the town during the years fol ...

using designs by

Giovanni Battista Scapitta Giovanni Battista Scapitta (1653-1715) was an Italian architect and engineer of the late Baroque period in Northern Italy. He was born in Moncalvo. He helped design the church of Santa Caterina, Casale Monferrato. One of his most influential des ...

. The highly decorated facade is in close proximity to the

elliptical dome An elliptical dome, or an ''oval dome'', is a dome whose bottom cross-section takes the form of an ellipse. Technically, an ''ellipsoidal dome'' has a circular cross-section, so is not quite the same. While the cupola can take different geomet ...

. The interiors were frescoed by

Giovanni Carlo Aliberti Gian Carlo Aliberti, also Giancarlo or Giovanni Carlo Aliberti, (13 February 1670 - 2 February 1727) was a prolific Piedmontese painter of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.V. Malfatto and P. Rogna''Asti nella storia delle sue vie''. Biog ...

who painted the ''Saints'' and ''Allegories of the Virtues'', while the dome was painted by lesser-known painters Benaschi and Vittore. The statue of the ''Virgin of the Assumption'' (1780) on the main altar was sculpted by

Giovanni Battista Bernero Giovanni Battista Bernero (1736–1796) was an Italian late-Baroque sculptor who worked, mainly in Piedmont, in a formalized restrained style, intermediate between baroque and Neoclassicism. He was born in Cavallerleone in Piedmont. A royal subsi ...

. An association dedicated to the restoration of the church is active in 2016.Santa Caterina Onlus

References

Roman Catholic churches in Casale Monferrato 17th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Italy 18th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Italy Baroque architecture in Piedmont {{Italy-RC-church-stub