Il Santuario di Oropa: rappresentazioni dalla storia alla contemporaneità / The Sanctuary of Oropa: representations from history to the present day

In northern Italy, the phenomenon of the Sacred Mounts is one of the processes that has most characterized the policy of the Counter-Reformation, from the Council of Trent onwards, constituting a physical and ideological barrier against the penetration of the Lutheran reform. Within the system of the Sacred Mounts, the present contribution critically favours that of Oropa, recognised as the largest Marian Sanctuary in the Alps. The complex, which became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003, is located in a unique and unspoilt setting, at 1200 meters above sea level in the municipality of Biella, in Piedmont. The work has its roots in documentary sources, grouped into three main groups: the first with drawings, views, photographic images and metric surveys, the second with the documents of the A.R.M.O. (Acta Reginae Montis Oropae); the third with bibliographic sources. The aim was to tackle and plan research on the Sanctuary, through direct and indirect sources, but above all through historical drawings and iconographies, without forgetting the biographies and profiles of architects, engineers, artists and craftsmen who have worked for the Sanctuary, including the great Savoy architects Arduzzi, Gallo, Beltramo, Juvarra, Guarini, Galletti, Bonora and Canina. The fundamental objective is to retrace (within a sequence of events, including political ones, strictly related) a visual itinerary that makes us understand the transformations of individual factories and of the entire territorial complex, without neglecting the wider contextualization in the system of the Sacred Mounts.