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Excavation

  • Chiesa di San Martino
  • Ormea
  •  
  • Italy
  • Piedmont
  • Province of Cuneo
  • Ormea

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Credits

  • The Italian Database is the result of a collaboration between:

    MIBAC (Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali - Direzione Generale per i Beni Archeologici),

    ICCD (Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione) and

    AIAC (Associazione Internazionale di Archeologia Classica).

  • AIAC_logo logo

Summary (English)

  • The archaeological investigation concentrated on the south-eastern corner of the church of San Martino. This corresponded with the entrance to the south nave, situated in the area of the Borganza gate. The excavation went down to 2.80 m below present ground level. The infill was constituted almost exclusively by rubble, dumped during work undertaken around the church in the mid 19th century with the aim of creating a surface on which to lay the church’s flooring. The presence of several structures was documented, of difficult interpretation due to the limited extension of the excavation area.

    The Borganza gate, built downhill from the town of Ormea in the 11th century, was one of the town’s two main entrances. In the 14th century, when the parish church dedicated to San Martino was built abutting the gate, it was transformed into a bell-tower. The main nucleus of the church was built around the mid 15th century. However, the gate retained its function as a point of passage until the restructuring which occurred during the 19th century.

    The two arches of the gate are still visible inside the church, close to the entrance: the southern one a round arch, the northern one ogival.

    The most interesting structures to come to light were without doubt the two door jambs – east and west – from which the arch of the Borganza gate sprang. These were constructed in ashlar blocks, arranged in regular courses bonded with a strong mortar with a gravel matrix. Subsequently, a structure with a vaulted opening in its northern part was built abutting the gate, the function and date of which are uncertain. The passageway was later blocked and substituted by a new opening with a brick-built radial arched. A second opening, also brick-built, may also have been constructed at this time. It is possible that this walled structure was in phase with a cobbled road, laid without mortar, on a north-south alignment, of which several patches were uncovered during restructuring work on the church in the 1990s.

    The road went out of use when a vaulted room was constructed, later destroyed by successive interventions. The remains of its west wall were preserved, with an arch spring into which a shelf, comprising two stone elements bonded with mortar, was inserted at the point where the joining of the vault was interrupted. There was a similar element towards the north, close to the gate arch, inserted into the main wall and functioning as the support for a floor of which no trace remained.

    The entire area underwent a radical transformation around the mid 19th century, when the church was enlarged towards the east with the creation of a new facade. Structures relating to its foundations are visible today beneath the new floor.

  • Simona Contardi  

Director

  • Maria Cristina Preacco - Soprintendenza Beni Archeologici del Piemonte

Team

Research Body

  • Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici del Piemonte e del Museo Antichità Egizie

Funding Body

  • Comune di Ormea

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