Perletto
The former parish church of Sant'Antonino
The former parish church of Sant'Antonino, renowned for its distinctive Romanesque architecture, preserves a valuable late Gothic fresco, widely distributed throughout the area. However, the painted panel depicting the Apostles was mysteriously removed in the 1980s, leaving behind traces of the original pigments and a period photograph as the only evidence of the original fresco.
On the right bank of the Bormida River, the town of Perletto, once part of the ancient Aleramic March, is mentioned in the foundation deed of the Benedictine Abbey of San Quintino di Spigno Monferrato, which owned some land there at least until the end of the 12th century. Historical events document Perletto as being owned first by the Del Carretto family and then by the Scarampi family at the beginning of the 14th century. In the Middle Ages, it followed the historical and political events of neighboring Cortemilia until it was elevated to an independent marquisate with the investiture of Carlo Gugliemo Valperga at the end of the 16th century.
The village of Perletto stands as a typical example of the medieval fortifications that were widespread in the Bormida Valley between the late 14th and early 15th centuries, providing a historical and geographical understanding of how the isolated ancient parish church of Sant’Antonino was “abandoned” to build the main religious building (under a different name) in the new town center within the city walls. Looking at the village from its dominant position, it is still possible to recognize the medieval fortified urban structure, consisting of a tower and a series of dwellings, once enclosed by a rectangular enclosure. The tower, in particular, bears similarities to those in the neighboring towns of Olmo Gentile and Vengore (also once part of the Scarampi family’s possessions) due to its architectural shape: with a square, sloped base, it features narrow slits and small windows in the upper section, a cistern inside, a fireplace, a sink in the guardroom, and an oven.
The former parish church of Sant'Antonino
The ancient parish church of Sant’Antonino was built on the summit of a hill where the first settlement likely originated. The church retains an extraordinary Romanesque appearance that dominates the current cemetery area and consists of a single, wide nave ending in a semi-cylindrical apse and a characteristic gabled façade.
The original Romanesque church has always attracted particular interest for the workmanship of the materials with which it was built, using local sandstone composed of regular cuts and neatly arranged, which testifies to specialized technical mastery.
At the end of the sixteenth century, already considered antiquated, the church was used to celebrate Masses for the dead. Over the following century, it underwent extensive renovation and restoration, which also included the replacement of the original wooden trusses. From the end of the eighteenth century, the church remained roofless for about a century, until a subsequent intervention that also involved raising the upper part of the apse and the insertion of modern windows.
The semi-cylindrical apse preserves a compositional prototype of late Gothic painting, recognizable in a devotional model widely used and reproduced in the territories under the Carretto family during the 15th century: Christ in Glory dominates the apse basin, surrounded by the four Evangelists. The Apostles are arranged in the register below, and the base is rendered with a false red curtain apparently attached to a wooden beam.
Despite subsequent restorations and pictorial retouching, and the theft of the intermediate pictorial band depicting the Apostles, the pictorial decoration may date from the late 15th century to the early 16th century, and is part of a specific Piedmontese-Ligurian culture, which bears particular similarities to the work of the Master of Roccaverano (who worked in very nearby geographical contexts) and anonymous itinerant workshops. Indeed, countless stylistic and compositional affinities can be recognized, not only in the decorative features (such as the colorful plant frame), but also in the particular sculptural rendering of the Evangelists‘ throne-lecterns and in the arrangement of the Apostles.
An ignoble theft
The middle band of the apse’s painted decoration originally featured the Disciples of Jesus Christ: they were depicted standing, in three-quarters, life-size and visible to the faithful, described with their iconographic attributes, equipped with a fluttering scroll, and set within a series of round arches. The name of the Apostle was then written on the extrados of each arch.
Amid the inexplicable silence of the community and institutions, in the 1980s the painted band depicting the Apostles was removed from the wall surface, leaving no trace. Today, by carefully examining the wall, one can see faint traces of some pigments, the only remnants of the violent removal of the fresco. Fortunately, evidence of the entire pictorial cycle survives in several period photographs, including one by photographer Bianco di Cortemilia, preserved in the papers of the Diocesan Historical Archives of Acqui Terme (to whose ecclesiastical district Perletto has always belonged). However, to date, no local chronicle or historical document has emerged to explain the reasons for this theft, nor is the current location of the missing fresco known.