Alba (Piedmont): what to see


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What to see in Alba, itinerary including the main monuments and places of interest, including the Maddalena Church, the Civic Museum, the San Lorenzo Cathedral, the Palazzo Comunale and the Loggia dei Mercanti.


Tourist information

Important town in the province of Cuneo, from which it is 61 km away, Alba has a largely medieval appearance, with Roman walls surrounding the oldest inhabited center.

With origins dating back to the Neolithic, it was later conquered by the Romans and destroyed in the tenth century by the Saracens.


Starting from 1283, Alba began to be enhanced first under the dominion of the Marquis of Monferrato, then under that of the Visconti, Gonzaga and, in 1631, the Savoy.

The Church of the Maddalena, located in via Vittorio Emanuele, was built by Vittone in the eighteenth century on top of a thirteenth-century church.

In Baroque style and with limited dimensions, the cult building has a facade made of terracotta never completed.


In the Civic Museum, which is set up, together with the Library, in the so-called Palazzo della Maddalena, archaeological finds dating back to the Neolithic period are exhibited, as well as the Bronze Age, the Iron Age and the Roman Age.

In via Calissanto there is the Church of San Domenico, in Gothic forms and with an interior with three naves built between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with subsequent alterations, including the addition of ten chapels in the eighteenth century.

Noteworthy is the splayed portal of the facade and the apse, in addition to the frescoes painted between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.


What see

In Piazza Risorgimento there is the Cathedral of San Lorenzo, erected in its original form in the Romanesque period and later completely rebuilt at the end of the fifteenth century according to the Gothic style.

Another radical restructuring was carried out in the nineteenth century, while leaving the eleventh century portals unchanged.

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Inside, in the apse, there is an interesting inlaid wooden choir, work carried out between 1512 and 1517 by Bernardino da Fossano.

From the square you can see the suggestive medieval towers placed on the sides of via Cavour and Vittorio Emanuele.

In the Palazzo Comunale there is a 1501 painting by Macrino d'Alba, depicting the Madonna and Child with Saints, and the Concerto, painted in the eighteenth century, probably by Mattia Preti.

In Piazza Pertinace stands the Church of San Giovanni Battista, with Baroque forms, inside which valuable works of art are preserved, including a Madonna delle Grazie by Barnaba da Modena and a Virgin with Saints by Macrino D’Alba.

In the presbytery there is a carved wooden bench of the sixteenth century and fragments of a predella depicting the Virgin and Child with Saints, the work of the students of Macrino d'Alba.

In the nearby via Cavour there is the medieval Loggia dei Mercanti.

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