Cattedrale di Sant’Evasio (UK)
Period: Consecrated in 1107 by Pope Pasquale II, it was built in 1474 to be a bishopric
Façade: Excluding the top part of the entrance portal and the flying buttresses, the façade is a compromise restructured by the architect Edoardo Arboreo Mella (Vercelli 1808 -1884) in the mid-19th century
The Interior: The recent restoration of the vast narthex (2001) brought to light an extraordinary decoration in bas-relief, Romanesque capitals and pilasters. Opening on to the narthex are five aisles with ribbed vaults supported by high pilasters decorated with capitals, which were renovated in the mid-1800s. In the presbytery to the left is a funerary monument, the work of Matteo Sanmicheli. The figures of Saints and Angles in the choir stalls have been painted by Costantino Sereno and date back to 1860. To the right there is another funerary monument by Sanmicheli and an altar dedicated to Our Lady of Grace, with sixteenth century reliefs taken from the high altar of Saint Evasius, attributed to the sculptors Guglielmo Della Porta and Agostino Busti, also known as Bambaia, and Cristoforo Lombardi. Facing the aisle to the right is the chapel dedicated to the patron; it was built in the second half of the eighteenth century to Benedetto Alfieri’s drawings and later modified by Luigi Michele Barberis (Turin, documented from 1755 to 1797): the bas-reliefs are the works of Giovan Battista Bernero and the fresco on the vaulted ceiling is by Giovan Battista Ronchelli (Cabiaglio 1715 -1788). In the centre of the Cathedral is the wooden Crucifix laminated in silver which dates back to the middle of the twelfth century
More info: www.comune.casale-monferrato.al.it/Cathedral