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Gran Madre di Dio

Neoclassical church modelled on the Pantheon, built by the City between 1818 and 1831 for the return of the House of Savoy; it holds the ossuary of Turin's dead of the Great War.

Image from Pietre della Memoria's publication
From Pietre della Memoria, 22 July 2025

The Gran Madre di Dio is the neoclassical church that closes, on the right bank of the Po, the vista opened by piazza Castello along via Po and piazza Vittorio Veneto. The City of Turin decreed it in 1814 as a votive temple for the return of Vittorio Emanuele I after the years of French rule; the works, designed by Ferdinando Bonsignore, began in 1818 and the consecration came in 1831[1]. The building stands at the foot of the hill, a short distance from the Monte dei Cappuccini and the Villa della Regina, and beneath its base has held, since 1932, the ossuary of Turin's dead of the Great War[2].

A temple for the king's return

In 1814 the House of Savoy returned to Turin after sixteen years of exile. To celebrate the event the municipality chose to build a votive temple and, at the same time, to reorganise the areas left vacant by the old fortifications, creating a visual axis that would lead the eye from the centre of the Kingdom of Sardinia's capital up to the hill[2]. On 20 May 1814 Vittorio Emanuele I had regained control of the Piedmontese dominions, and that return is commemorated by the Latin inscription running along the pronaos entablature, ORDO POPULUSQUE TAURINUS OB ADVENTUM REGIS: the dedication of Turin's notables and people for the king's arrival[3].

The commission went in 1818 to Ferdinando Bonsignore (1760-1843), a Turin architect who had trained for fourteen years in Rome, at the Accademia di Francia[1]. In 1828, with the site still open, Bonsignore himself published the Disegni e descrizione del tempio eretto alla Gran Madre di Dio dal Corpo Decurionale di Torino[1]. The pronaos was built between 1827 and 1831 and the inauguration took place on 20 May 1831, in the presence of Carlo Alberto[2].

The architecture: a Pantheon on the Po

The church has a central plan modelled on the Pantheon in Rome: the interior is circular, with two side chapels, and the building stands on a tall base preceded by a flight of steps and the colonnaded pronaos[2]. The coffered dome is considered one of the most accomplished expressions of Piedmontese neoclassicism[3]. The architectural historian Nino Carboneri, in the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, gave this assessment:

"The votive temple is a copy of the Pantheon, but the reduced proportions, the elegance of its lines and the scenic framing against the backdrop of the hill, on axis with via Po, give it an appeal that tempers the academic, celebratory tone of a programmatic, erudite neoclassicism."

Nino Carboneri, entry "Bonsignore, Ferdinando", Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 1971

According to the same entry, a band of external reliefs planned for the project was never carried out[1]. The scholar Giovanni Ciarrocchi has read an astronomical calculation into the building's geometry: Bonsignore, he argues, adapted the Roman model to Turin's latitude so that the beam of light from the oculus would mark the summer solstice with precision[4].

The statues

The pediment holds a bas-relief by Francesco Somaini showing the Virgin and Child receiving the homage of the decurions; at the base of the dome, bas-reliefs recount episodes from the life of Mary, and the high altar bears the marble group of the Virgin and Child by Andrea Galassi[2]. In the niches on either side of the doorway stand Saint Maximus, a work by Giuseppe Chialli, a pupil of Canova, and Saint Charles Borromeo[5]. In the late 1820s Giuseppe Bogliani, the sculptor who would also work on the Sanctuary of the Consolata and on the monument to Pietro Micca, received the commission for the statues of Saint Charles Borromeo and Saint John the Baptist[6]; other niches hold Saint Maurice, the blessed Margherita of Savoy and the blessed Amedeo of Savoy[2].

On either side of the steps sit Turin's two most debated allegorical statues. Religion holds the tablets of the Law, and a Latin cross — the only one visible on the building — bears a triangle with an eye on its brow and has a papal tiara at its feet; Faith holds an open book and a chalice[3]. That very chalice has fed the legend that the statue holds the secret of the Holy Grail and that her gaze points to where it is hidden — a theory the sculpture itself contradicts, since the eyes have no pupils[3]. The same esoteric lore includes the tradition of an ancient temple of Isis said to have stood on the same spot[3].

Vittorio Emanuele I, waiting on the square

In front of the steps stands the monument to Vittorio Emanuele I, carved by Giuseppe Gaggini[7]. The statue had been commissioned by Carlo Alberto for Genoa, in front of Palazzo Ducale, but after the events of 1849 it ended up in municipal storage and then in the depots of Palazzo Reale[8]. In 1869 a nephew of the sculptor wrote to the mayor of Turin, and Vittorio Emanuele II donated the work to the city; the base, designed by the engineer Bollati, took another sixteen years[8]. The dates diverge: the Dizionario Biografico places the statue on the square already in 1869[7], while MuseoTorino and the local press put it at 1885, when it was set on the tall pedestal bearing Turin's coat of arms[9][8]. There was no real inauguration: the Comune's resources were absorbed by the General Exposition[8].

The Great War and the ossuary

On 23 June 1918, in the days of the last Austro-Hungarian offensive on the Piave, mayor Secondo Frola proclaimed from the Gran Madre a pledge of "resistance at any cost," taking up an initiative of the Gazzetta del Popolo; in 1928, the tenth anniversary of victory, a plaque under the colonnade fixed the text and the citizens' oath[10]:

"WE, CITIZENS OF TURIN, IN MEMORY OF OUR FALLEN, FOR THE HEROISM OF THOSE WHO FOUGHT ON LAND, AT SEA AND IN THE AIR FOR ITALY, FOR FREEDOM, FOR CIVILISATION, FOR ALL THAT WE HOLD MOST DEAR, SWEAR TO RESIST AT THE COST OF ANY SACRIFICE UNTIL VICTORY"

Oath plaque, 1928

In the 1930s the architect Giovanni Ricci carved a crypt into the base. On 27 June 1932 a procession of 48 lorries brought the remains of 3,851 of the fallen from the Cimitero Monumentale, and on 25 October Benito Mussolini officially inaugurated the ossuary; the walls are covered with marble plaques listing, in alphabetical order, the name, surname and rank of the soldiers[11][10]. In the floor of the church an opening lets visitors look down into the ossuary below[3].

Cracks, building sites and reopening

In October 2020 maintenance workers reported cracks in the floor and architraves, and the Comune commissioned a geophysical and seismic survey costing around 47,000 euros[12]. In December 2023 councillor Francesco Tresso announced 400,000 euros for the statues of Saint Maximus and Saint Charles and for the façade[5]. In June 2025 the City council approved a sponsorship: the company One Srl took on a restoration of the façades costing a little over a million euros, repaid through advertising on the scaffolding, covering 1,072 square metres of stone, 183 of plasterwork and 318 of stucco[13]. In August 2026 the building site was extended until October to thoroughly restore Faith and Religion and the wooden doorway[14].

The ossuary too, run by the municipal company AFC with volunteers from Assoarma, was returned to the city in 2026 after works costing 400,000 euros under an agreement with the Ministry of Defence, and can now be visited at weekends[15]. "This is not just a building or monument project, but a moral duty towards the 3,851 soldiers from Turin who sacrificed their lives in the First World War," said councillor Marco Porcedda at the reopening[15].

Pages linking here

Related articles: Pietro Micca, Santuario della Consolata

Sources

  1. Treccani – Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani — 1 January 1971
  2. Città e Cattedrali
  3. Mole24 — 6 December 2020
  4. Archeomedia — 22 October 2018
  5. Mole24 — 5 December 2023
  6. Mole24 — 28 January 2026
  7. Treccani – Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani — 1 January 1998
  8. Mole24 — 17 September 2026
  9. MuseoTorino
  10. Pietre della Memoria — 22 July 2025
  11. Mole24 — 2 August 2025
  12. Mole24 — 21 October 2020
  13. TorinoClick – Città di Torino — 17 June 2025
  14. Mole24 — 9 August 2026
  15. TorinoClick – Città di Torino — 5 June 2026

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