Church of Saints Helen and Eusebius (Collegiate Church of St. Helen) - Chiesa dei Santi Elena ed Eusebio (Collegiata di Sant'Elena)

Highlights

Parish church in Baroque-style.

Inside is preserved, among others, a valuable painting depicting Our Lady of Oropa.

The Collegiate Church of St. Helen, now a parish church, was built in the current Baroque lines at the behest of Mons. Giacomo Goria, incorporating an earlier chapel already documented in 1556 and belonging to the Community of Villafranca.

In 1645, the bishop made a large donation for the purpose of establishing an Opera Pia in Villafranca and also decreed the construction of the church, entrusting the project to Amedeo di Castellamonte.

The work to enlarge the site and build the current church, under the direction of Francesco Garvi, lasted from 1646 to 1652, the year in which it is blessed.

In the following decade, the interior was completed: in 1666 Giovanni Luca Corbellini created the recently restored stuccoes of the virtues, and in 1671, the centenary of the birth of Msgr. Goria, the church is solemnly consecrated.

The façade was completed in 1679 by the plasterer Giacomo Soleri on a design by Castellamonte, and finally, in 1686, the high altar was laid out, attributable to Tommaso Carlone.

Valuable works adorn the interior. The high altar is in polychrome marble and on the "interrupted" tympanums of its doors appear busts, in white marble, depicting St. Eusebius and St. Helen. Above, on the Choir, stands the canvas wanted by the founder depicting Our Lady of Oropa at whose sides are the figures of St. Helen and St. Eusebius and, kneeling in prayer, Msgr. Goria.

In the four side altars, recently restored, can be seen: at the first altar on the right, a 17th-century wooden “Crucifixion”, with St. John and Our Lady, of great dramatic intensity; on the second altar there is a painting representing St. Carlo Borromeo in the act of venerating the Shroud; at the first altar on the left is the canvas depicting St. Francis of Assisi receiving the stigmata, a work attributed to the famous painter Guglielmo Caccia known as Il Moncalvo or to his school; at the second altar the canvas of the Assumption.

To the side is the valuable wooden baptistery from the Baroque period, with a marble pedestal. The sacristy houses the church's original pulpit, which bears the insignia of the Goria family.