San Pancrazio sanctuary

For its thaumaturgical power San Pancrazio, in antiquity, was famous throughout the Savoy territory, beyond and beyond the Alps.
On May 12th , 1450, the "Miracolo Casella" occurred: Antonio Casella of Pianezza, mowing the hay in his lawn, unexpectedly, with a sickle shot, cut his foot to his wife who had brought him lunch. At that moment of great fear, San Pancrazio appeared to them, consoling them and promising healing, if they had erected a votive pillar in his honor in that same place. The two spouses made the vote and the leg healed immediately. However, perhaps by laziness, the votive pillar was not built, and the vote was not maintained. Exactly after one year, on the same day, at the same time, his wife's foot suddenly severed. Desperate, Casella asked the parish priest for help, so he read the vote, and this time he honored it. Like a miracle, the limb swung back and his wife saved herself. The peasant immediately built the votive pillar and painted with his wife in the act of giving thanks to the saint.
Spreading the news of the miracle, the pylon becomes a place of popular worship, with the growing of devotion and with alms given in favor of the saint, the inhabitant community built a chapel encircling the pylon. But the arrival of many pilgrims and the need for them to find adequate assistance suggested the opportunity to create a welcoming place and, above all, to erect a sanctuary worthy of the saint whose veneration was spreading more and more. The Sanctuary was erected by the Marquis of Pianezza, Giacinto Simiana, immediately after the war between Madama Cristina and her brother-in-law, who wanted to donate a convent to the Augustinians of San Carlo in Turin perhaps in honor of their Madama's fidelity, who continued their work for nearly 150 years. The construction, overcoming various obstacles, began in 1647. Ten years later the Marquis obtained a relic of the saint which was placed under the altar. Simiana died in 1677 and was buried in a crypt of the Sanctuary, but today no one knows where his remains are.
In 1741 the sanctuary became free from all subjection from the civil authority and on May 9, 1886, the Passionist Fathers began their ministry in the Sanctuary of San Pancrazio.
With the First World War, many Fathers were called to arms, so the Superior then voted to build a new Shrine if his brothers were back safe and sound. So it was and in 1919 the works began with the architect Lorenzo Basso of Genoa, who proposed a neo-gothic design. Only the arcades were built, which make wing to the Shrine and form a 50-meter-wide quadrilateral with 44 Gothic arches, supported by columns. The architecture is very close to the Renaissance cloisters of the various Charterhouses, while the polychrome of the whole building remembers the Genoese environments. The work was completed in 1927. In addition to the porches, it was decided to rebuild the chapel.
The new chapel, designed by engineer Bartolomeo Gallo, has an octagonal plan with two floors, the crypt under the level of the Sanctuary Plan, which collects ex vows (over 25,000) live testimonies of the many healings and wonders of the Saint, and the actual Chapel on the floor of the Shrine, where the venerated "pillar of the Casella" is housed. It has a solid reinforced concrete structure with sixteen feet of side, the pillars support, with a system of six-pointed arches, the high drum and vault, crowned by a luminous cupola of topped windows, from the outside, from a thin spire of copper and a cross.
Only on 11 November 1948 began the demolition work of the old Shrine. The design of the new one was realized by the architect Amedeo Bordini and is in Tuscan Gothic style. In 1953, the essential work ended.
Today's Sanctuary is in neo-Gothic style: the nave, even if it is bent on frescoes, is majestic by the great black pillars that support the sail-vault. The only fresco is the "Glorious Redeemer" on the vault of the apse, completed in 1957 by the Arduino from Turin.