Chiesa di Sant'Andrea, Bra site features

The church has a plan of three naves with deep chapels and a restless Baroque facade — movimentata is the word the record uses, and it is the right one for a front designed in the Roman manner.

The thing to find inside is the Altar of San Sebastiano, co-patron of Bra. It was willed by the Comune — a civic commission in a parish church — and executed in 1760 by Giuseppe Antonio Barelli.

Above it stands a large oval of the Martyrdom of Sant'Andrea by Claudio Francesco Beaumont, painter of the Savoy court. The record is unambiguous about its standing: the most beautiful piece of 18th-century painting present in the city.

In the same chapel are two canvases of San Rocco and Santa Vittoria by Pietro Paolo Operti. On the opposite side, a large oval by Pietro Morgari, and on the altar of the Madonna del Rosario a picture of the Virgin with Child by Giovanni Claret.

In the sacristy, built around 1860, hangs a large canvas of the Battle of Lepanto, also by Claret. Elsewhere there is a Martyrdom of San Sebastiano by Claudio Francesco Beaumont and minor works by Roasio di Mondovì and Davide Caland.

A Bernini design, built under Guarini

The church was erected to a design by Gian Lorenzo Bernini under the guidance of Guarino Guarini — two of the defining architects of the Italian Baroque, on a parish church in the Piedmontese provinces.

The Altar of San Sebastiano, 1760

Co-patron of Bra. The altar was willed by the Comune and made by Giuseppe Antonio Barelli: the town commissioned its own altar inside its own parish church.

Claudio Francesco Beaumont's Martyrdom of Sant'Andrea

The great oval over that altar, by the painter of the Savoy court, and described by the record as the finest 18th-century painting in Bra.

The bas-relief on Via Barbacana

Medieval, carved with a vegetal ornamental motif, and walled into the outside of this church — salvaged from the old Sant'Andrea that was demolished between 1837 and 1845. It is on the exterior, so it is the one thing here you can always see.

The surviving bell tower in Via Fasola

The 18th-century campanile and retro-sacristy of the demolished medieval church still stand, a street away. The old parish left its tower behind.

Claret's Battle of Lepanto

In the sacristy of around 1860. A naval battle of 1571 on a canvas in a Piedmontese sacristy.

The title of Priore

The parish priest of Sant'Andrea takes the denomination of Prior — a survival of the older foundation's status.