Paroldo
The oratory of San Sebastiano
The church of San Sebastiano in Paroldo, located next to the ruins of the castle on the hilltop, has attracted considerable interest due to its geographical location, architecture, and intended use. Used as a metallurgical forge in the medieval period, it was later converted into a chapel and then used as a religious building for a brotherhood. The late Gothic frescoes discovered inside are attributed to a local itinerant workshop and decorate an unusual section of the wall.
In the southern Langhe, in a dominant position on the hills overlooking a tributary of the Tanaro River, lies the town of Paroldo. Belonging to the Marquises of Ceva at various times in history, the territory was also controlled by the Visconti family, and in the late 14th century, it was included in a dowry of the Orléans family. In 1503, it became a fiefdom of the Della Rovere and Del Carretto families, before passing under the rule of the Savoy family in 1588.
The oratory of San Sebastiano
Located on the hilltop next to the castle ruins, the church of San Sebastiano di Paroldo has long been a fascinating object of study due to its geographical location, origins, and architectural configuration, as well as the unique placement of its pictorial decoration on an unconventional part of the wall.
Recent archaeological investigations have uncovered the existence of a metallurgical forge in the first portion of the building, as well as the remains of ceramic artifacts dating from the 13th to the 16th century.
The discovery of specific slag in the soil and a hearth base used in the forging process attests that the workshop was used to process already-transformed minerals. These were therefore specialized activities that place this structure within a more complex and widespread medieval economic-industrial system, likely linked to Benedictine settlements.
The building’s exterior wall, on the side facing the valley, was part of the defensive wall protecting the castle and the inhabited village. The corner of this wall featured the archway leading to the “castrum,” the hinges on which the entrance door swung still survive. The same wall was later used as a load-bearing element for a quadrangular chapel, located on the first floor, likely above the shop. The building’s ambiguous orientation, running north-south rather than the usual east-west orientation typical of places of worship at the time, seems to confirm the building’s reuse for purposes other than strictly religious ones.
Toward the end of the 16th century, the church underwent expansions and various structural modifications, transforming it into a large rectangular building. The apse was inverted to adapt the space to the needs of a lay confraternity, the Disciplinanti Bianchi, dedicated to spiritual and charitable functions in subsequent centuries. In modern times, a small wooden mezzanine was added to the same wall, accessible by an external staircase, and used as a choir by members of the confraternity. During restoration work carried out at the end of the last century, a surprising pictorial cycle was discovered on the wall, which once served as an apse when the church was used as a chapel.
The fresco decoration features three distinct registers: the lower level features a white curtain against a dark background; the middle register depicts various saints arranged within arches; while the upper lunette depicts the episode of the Crucifixion, set in a landscape recognized as local and characterized by snow-capped hills and arid lands.
In the middle section, the Theory of Saints is interrupted by a later opening that destroyed what was likely originally a depiction of a Madonna enthroned with the Child in her lap. On the left side, we find Saint Peter and Saint Anthony Abbot, followed by Saint Sebastian in courtly robes. Symmetrically arranged on the right side are Saint Roch, Saint Bernard of Aosta, and Saint Michael the Archangel, clad in knightly armor. On either side of the Crucifixion are two shields with red bands running across a yellow background, surmounted by a cardinal’s hat and tassels: these are the coat of arms of Carlo Domenico Del Carretto, Lord of Paroldo, and Cardinal under Pope Julius II from 1505 to 1514. An inscription below bears a gaping date (previously interpreted in various ways), of which only the first part, MCCCCCX[?], is legible, meaning one thousand five hundred and ten, with any remainder missing.
The pictorial intervention, which presumably also extended to the adjacent walls, has been identified, thanks to the remains of some fragments of a white curtain, as the anonymous Master of Cosseria, active with his workshop between the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, also in other nearby locations controlled by the Del Carretto family..
In particular, the comparison with the pictorial cycle of the parish church of Cosseria, dated 1515, was striking: in addition to the resumption of easily recognizable decorative motifs, such as the “lettuce leaf” frame, and the scenographic setting, the affinity between the figures of Saint Michael the Archangel and Saint Roch, which appear to be identical and mirror-like in execution, confirms the same authorship.