The sanctuary of Vicoforte, also known as the sanctuary of the Madonna, the basilica sanctuary of the Nativity of the Holy Mary or the Regina Montis Regalis sanctuary-basilica is located in the territory of the municipality of Vicoforte, in the province of Cuneo. It is a monumental church, among the most important in Piedmont, whose dome with an elliptical horizontal section is the largest of this shape in the world. The complex has its origins in a medieval sanctuary, composed of a modest pylon decorated with a fifteenth-century fresco depicting the Madonna and Child, probably erected by a bricklayer to encourage good firing of bricks. Starting from the year 1594, the deacon Cesare Trombetta began to take an interest in the state of Pilone, which was essentially abandoned in the wooded Berbonesca valley bottom, not far from Vicoforte. In that period, following a fever epidemic that had left most of the population of Vico unscathed, there was a first strong impulse of devotion. Coordinated by Trombetta, the first small chapel was built around the pylon during autumn 1594 and spring 1595. In those months, the rumor of numerous graces granted by the Virgin to the common people began to circulate through the valleys, and thus a devotional movement developed which reached heights never seen before and never reached since. During 1595, thousands of people reached the valley floor on pilgrimage, arousing the interest of Duke Carlo Emanuele I of Savoy. In 1594 and 1595 an extraordinary popular movement of devotion took shape, which expanded to attract companies, brotherhoods and communities from almost all of north-west Italy. The pylon was the destination of increasingly frequent pilgrimages and also attracted the attention of Duke Carlo Emanuele I of Savoy who, in 1596, commissioned the construction of a large sanctuary which was later to become the mausoleum of the House of Savoy, a place intended for the tombs of the family, a function later assumed by the basilica of Superga on the Turin hill. The powerful elliptical dome was raised by Francesco Gallo and is 74 meters high, 37.15 meters long on the major axis and 24.80 meters on the minor axis. The fresco decorations of the over six thousand square meters of surface were then completed between 1746 and 1748 by Mattia Bortoloni and Felice Biella; the theme is that of Salvation. In 1709 the sculptor Giuseppe I Gaggini took on the task of creating the monument with the statue of Margaret of Savoy, daughter of the duke, completed in 1714. The sanctuary took on its current form in 1884, when the bell towers and the three facades were built to work of the engineer and architect Camillo dei Conti Riccio (who was also responsible for the pedestal of the imposing statue representing Carlo Emanuele I in cloak and sword).
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