Sale San Giovanni
The former parish church of San Giovanni Battista
In Sale San Giovanni, some wonderful examples of medieval painting can be admired in the former parish church of San Giovanni, which houses colorful 13th-century frescoes in the apse, and in the chapel of Sant'Anastasia, which stands in an extraordinary geographical position.
The first documented mention of Sale San Giovanni dates back to an Ottonian diploma of 998, where it is listed among the places granted to the bishops of Savona. Further evidence can be found in other documentary sources, including confirmations of ownership in imperial parchments dated 999 and 1014. From the 13th century, Sale San Giovanni was listed among the territories subject to the Marquisate of Ceva, as confirmed by the Isnardi Constitutions of the Diocese of Alba in 1325. The municipal statutes of the early 14th century, drawn up between the citizens and the Marquis of Ceva, attest to the presence of the town of Sale San Giovanni within the Marquisate’s domains as early as 1135.
The former parish church of San Giovanni Battista
The ancient early medieval parish church of San Giovanni Battista (Saint John the Baptist), built with local sandstone by expert craftsmen, is the original nucleus around which the town developed. This original building, likely dating to the late 11th or early 12th century, still retains traces of its original masonry in the apse. Initially composed of three naves with semicircular apses, the right nave was demolished in the 18th century to accommodate the sacristy. The original masonry can be recognized today by blocks of varying sizes used in the apse and sides.
Until 1380, the building was still recognized as a parish church, but towards the end of the 16th century, although it remained the parish’s main place of worship and was regularly used for religious services, with an adjoining cemetery, the sacraments were celebrated in the church of San Siro, located in the residential area next to the castle, for the convenience of the population.
Inside, a diverse collection of paintings dating from the 13th to the 17th centuries is preserved. Upon entering, on the right, the remains of a painting depicting the faces of two saints in prayer suggest the presence of other 13th- and 14th-century pictorial embellishments that have since disappeared.
The apse hosts an imposing Christ in Majesty in the guise of the Last Judgement, surrounded by the Tetramorph, the symbols of the four Evangelists. On the sides, the Madonna and Saint John the Baptist, and on the far right, Saint Margaret with the dragon. On the triumphal arch, the Annunciation Angel is depicted on the left. A multicolored frieze adorned with philharmonic and plant motifs accompanies and delimits the religious scenes.
In the naves, three votive panels linked to private commissions stand out for their quality of execution and appear to belong to the itinerant workshops that, between the late 15th and early 16th centuries, traveled along the Bormida River, still using typically medieval models. These are examples of popular religiosity, presented in life-size frames at the observer’s field of vision, sealing the bond with the patron.
In the second pillar on the left, the figure of Saint Sebastian stands out, dressed in courtly attire, with thick blond hair and a heap of arrows alluding to his martyrdom. In the next pillar is Saint Secondo with a model of the city of Asti, of which he is the patron saint, while on the opposite side of the nave, in the first pillar, is a remarkable Madonna and Child, partially damaged.
The Sant’Anastasia chapel
The chapel of Sant’Anastasia, also known locally as Sant’Anna, stands in an extraordinary geographical location, isolated from the town and perched atop a ridge. This chapel was a dependency of the Benedictine monastery of San Stefano Belbo or San Benedetto, starting in 1050. Historical references indicate the presence of property in the village of Sale in the founding deed of the Abbey of Santa Maria di Castiglione, and starting in 1281, four farms between Priero and Sale were ceded by the prior to the Marquis of Ceva in exchange for the annual payment of two millstones extracted from the “mollaria sallarum” and delivered to the ancient church of Sant’Anastasia.
The place where the church is located is still known today as “Gamellona,” a toponym whose meaning is unclear: it could refer to the Lombard expression for communal land, or to the container used by the monks to serve wayfarers. The chapel has a simple structure: a single nave, a flat apse, and a gabled roof. Only the apse retains its original layout, while the nave was likely enlarged at a later date, as evidenced by the unevenness of the masonry.
Around this chapel, there were granges owned by the Benedictines, whose purpose was to accommodate pilgrims, a function recognized since antiquity, as evidenced by the small pictorial fragment of Saint James the Greater, patron saint of pilgrims, created in the late 13th century on the triumphal arch of the apse. The barrel vault of the apse preserves traces of four scenes from the Infancy of Jesus Christ (Nativity, Annunciation to the Shepherds, Massacre of the Innocents, and Adoration of the Magi), dated between the 13th and 14th centuries.
The back wall, however, features a later pictorial intervention, dated to 1493 thanks to a brush-tip inscription on the upper edge of the frame. From left to right, we can recognize the episode of Saint Bernard being harassed by a little devil, followed by Saint Anthony the Abbot, Saint Romeo, dressed as a pilgrim, Saint Anastasia, and finally Saint Roch. This wall ends with a panel commissioned a few decades later, depicting a Madonna enthroned with the Child, flanked by Saint John the Baptist and a musician angel. This panel was painted on another, slightly later layer of plaster, and its pictorial texture is partially compromised.
Some plaster losses, right in the lower section of the apse cycle, suggest that beneath what we admire today was a previous frescoed episode. A modern plaque located on the same lower section bears what must have been the original inscription accompanying the fresco campaign, now almost entirely lost. Located below the central panel (the one depicting Saint Roch, Saint Anastasia, and Saint Romeo), it reads: “HOC OPUS FEM FUIT V. di D. MOFREDI BASSI.” The late Gothic pictorial culture evident in the panels on the apse wall can be found and recognized in some votive panels that enliven the ancient parish church of San Giovanni Battista.
the chapel of San Sebastiano
Not far away, a small late-medieval chapel at the entrance to the town center was meant to “protect” the inhabitants: it is dedicated to Saint Sebastian, a saint invoked to protect against epidemics. The building appears as a simple quadrangular hall, without an apse, with visible signs of an ancient portico attached to the now blocked-up southern side. Originally, there was an altar against the northern side (the chapel’s orientation is unusual, north/south). The chapel bears signs of repeated modifications: as also shown by the frescoes, the internal floor level was raised (the original level is two meters below, where traces of the painted wainscot are also visible) to reach the street, and the ceiling was raised again later, likely during the 19th century.
Inside the church, a series of frescoes dating back to the late 16th century decorate the lunettes, revealing the iconographic theme of the Triumph of Death, featuring a recurring depiction of a skeleton.
In the lower section of the frescoes, partially covered by a red curtain, traces of a figurative scene emerge, presumably the Cavalcade of Vices, similar to the pictorial model found in the country chapel of San Rocco in Mombarcaro. The frame of the upper arch on the back wall is adorned with motifs of racemes and white candelabra on a red background, similar to those used in the pictorial episode on the apse vault of the church of San Michele (formerly San Pietro) in Mombarcaro. These similarities clearly highlight the influence of the work of Antonino Occelli da Ceva, thus underscoring a clear historical and artistic connection between the two churches in Mombarcaro and this one, which are geographically very close.