Confraternity of the Misericordia - Croce Nera

The church of the Confraternity of the Misericordia or of Saint John Decollate is referred to by the people of Savigliano as Crosà Neira because of the habit worn by confreres, devoted chiefly to assisting the sick and those condemned to death. It was built to plans by the Lugano architects Agostino Rusca and Filippo Piazzola, under the supervision of Giuseppe Fontana of Cuneo. Work commenced in 1614. The church was composed of a nave with two side altars and a massive bell tower, the construction of which began in 1664, to plans by the captain and engineer Giacomo Antonio Biga, but was not completed until 1711-15.
The richly decorated interior poses a contrast to the simple two-storey façade that takes up the typical seventeenth-century architectural layout of religious buildings used for hospitaller confraternities. In the early decades of the past century the cost of maintaining the building began to rise. Following a period of financial difficulties, the decision was made to sell off paintings and artwork. To minimize this dispersion, around 1950 the church's ornaments, sacred objects and works of art were delivered to the monastery of San Pietro, where they remain today. In the 1960s the church - deconsecrated by this time - was set up as a warehouse and crafts workshop.
In 1984 a municipal ordinance required its demolition, which was fortunately stopped thanks to the intervention of the Natura Nostra Association and the Superintendence of Environmental and Architectural Heritage.
After years of abandonment and deterioration, the building - which by this time no longer had a roof and had been gutted on the south side of the nave - was restored between 2005 and 2010, thanks to a project promoted by the municipal government of Savigliano, based on plans by the architect Gianfranco Gritella. In the restoration project, modern architecture was "grafted" onto the seventeenth-century ruins with a protective covering in steel and zinc-titanium alloy, reorganizing the spaces while leaving the traces of the past intact.
A crack created intentionally on the façade serves as a reminder of the difficult history of the building, which is now a prestigious multipurpose hall open to the public. The interior houses the original of the eighteenth-century iron pediment set on the spire of the bell tower. The work of the Savigliano master Giorgio Golfi, it depicts the head of John the Baptist surrounded by a radiate nimbus.