Camagna Monferrato: the great dome and the underground cellars

Long before you reach Camagna Monferrato, its enormous dome appears on the horizon, crowned by a three-metre copper Madonna and ringed by fifteen monumental statues. This village of fewer than five hundred people in the hills of Alessandria province is one of the most striking sights of the Monferrato wine country.

The village of the great dome

The parish church of Sant'Eusebio, documented from 1299 and rebuilt over the centuries, took its present extraordinary form in 1885 to a design by Crescentino Caselli, a pupil of Alessandro Antonelli, the creator of Turin's Mole Antonelliana. Inside, beneath the soaring dome, are paintings by Orsola Caccia and stained glass by Costantino Sereno. Around it the village climbs in concentric lanes of tufa and brick houses to the site of the old castle, on land once granted by Frederick Barbarossa to the marquises of Monferrato.

The infernot

Camagna belongs to the core zone of the Monferrato degli Infernot, part of the UNESCO World Heritage vineyard landscapes of Piedmont. The infernot are small cellars dug entirely by hand into the local sandstone, the Pietra da Cantoni, where families still keep their best bottles in constant cool; several can be visited in the village, which also produces noted wines and honey.

Getting there

Camagna Monferrato is a short drive south of Casale Monferrato, in hill country roughly midway between Turin and Milan, with Alessandria about thirty kilometres away.