Things to See in Sant'Ambrogio di Torino | Italia Magnifica

All the monuments in Sant'Ambrogio di Torino

The landmarks and masterpieces worth planning a day around.

The Sacra di San Michele on its pyramid above the Susa valley

ChurchSacra di San MicheleAbbey on Mount Pirchiriano, Stairway of the Dead, Zodiac Portal, symbol of PiedmontBenedictine monks began this abbey in the late tenth century on the summit of Mount Pirchiriano, and it has been rebuilding itself on that rock ever since. The approach is part of the point: the Scalone dei Morti, 243 steps between walls once set with burial niches, climbs to the marble Zodiac Portal, a twelfth-century sculptural masterpiece. Inside are a Romanesque and Gothic church and a terrace over the Susa Valley. Umberto Eco drew on its silhouette for The Name of the Rose, and a regional law names it the symbolic monument of Piedmont. Rosminian fathers, who restored the site from 1835, still look after it.Plan the visit

Abbazia di Sant'Antonio di RanversoHidden GemSant'Antonio di Ranverso AbbeyGothic Antonite precettoria, Jaquerio frescoes, Defendente Ferrari altarpiece, Via FrancigenaThe Precettoria of Sant’Antonio di Ranverso was founded in the twelfth century by the Antonite order, whose monks ran a hospital for pilgrims on the Via Francigena and treated ergotism, then called St. Anthony’s Fire. What survives is a rarity for Piedmont: a Gothic complex with northern European touches, from the asymmetrical church front with terracotta decoration and pinnacles to a fourteenth-century portico with ribbed vaults. Inside, look for the fifteenth-century frescoes by Giacomo Jaquerio, the leading painter of International Gothic in Piedmont, and the 1531 altarpiece by Defendente Ferrari. It is one of three sites run by the Ordine Mauriziano, alongside Stupinigi and Staffarda.

The Sant'Ambrogio di Torino guide

More within reach

Monuments a day trip away, elsewhere in Piedmont.

More in Piedmont