ST. DOMINIC'S CHURCH

CENTRAL NAVE

The central nave is about 50 metres long (including the apse), about 17 metres high and 8.70 metres wide. The vaults of the fifth and sixth bay were built between 1441 and 1442 to replace the old wooden trusses. Margaret of Savoy, a powerful Marquise of Monferrato and also a Dominican nun and founder of a new convent in Alba, was responsible for encouraging the construction and decoration with valuable frescoes. In the first of two bays we can see some elegant female figures seated on elaborate thrones representing four holy virgins, martyred in the early centuries of Christianity. The thrones lean against a background of shrubs and small trees with a clear sky dotted with stars above. The saints with their characteristic attributes are holding a book in their hands. In the northern vault (facing the church entrance) Saint Catherine of Alexandria is represented dressed in green and red. The crown placed on the head shows her royal origin, while the sword and the sprocket placed at her feet allude to the instruments of her martyrdom. If we look to the right we can see a saint who is holding an object of uncertain shape: it could be a mirror or, more probably, pincers that would identify her as Saint Apollonia. Towards the apse, dressed in ochre and accompanied by a white lamb, we see Saint Agnes, while the last vault is occupied by Saint Margaret of Antioch, with a menacing green dragon with a long tail at her feet. The keystone is decorated with a white "agnus dei " from which wavy sunbeams branch off, now rather deteriorated and therefore hardly visible. In the sixth bay, following a similar pattern to the previous one, the four Doctors of the Church are depicted. In the north facing vault, sitting on an austere grey throne, Saint Augustine is portrayed, characterised by the Episcopal insignia; the miter (the distinctive conical hat) and the pastoral staff. On the left there is the vault with St. Gregory the Great, represented in his characteristic iconography, holding a pen, ready to write inspired by a white dove resting next to his ear. Note, in the lower right corner, there is a portrait of the kneeling patron, the Blessed Margherita, in a tertiary Dominican habit. At the centre, in a polilobate frame, there is the bust of a nun with her hands clasped in prayer. Moving clockwise again we find St. Jerome, identified by red cardinal signs (the clothes and large hat at his feet) and the lion on the left. In the last vault, finally, there is St. Ambrose, the bishop of Milan: the scourge brandished threateningly reminiscent of the fight he led against the Arians. Each vault is bordered by a decorative strip decorated with plant motifs. Along these strips we see some frames: some of them around small secular half-bust figures, unidentified; others contain the coat of arms of the Marquis of Monferrato and Monferrato-Savoy (the latter belonging to the Blessed Margherita). Also in this case the keystone is decorated with an "agnus dei", surrounded by a fan-shaped decorative motif in the three colours that characterise the entire composition: white, red and green. Back in the right aisle we can see, next to a door leading outside, a painted inscription that recalls the restoration of the church and its reopening for worship that took place between 1826 and the following year, through the work of the Brotherhood of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Above the door, there is a fragment of a fresco with the beautiful face of a veiled woman and, in the background, a hut: in all probability it is the Virgin, part of Nativity or an Adoration of the Child. The work can be dated to the second half of the fourteenth century and is attributed to an anonymous master from Lombardy. Note that the painting was partially covered in the fifteenth century by the addition of a lesene, aimed at supporting the new vault.