Mortara

Mortara is a town and comune in the region of Lombardy, Italy. It lies between the Agogna and Terdoppio rivers, in the historical district known as Lomellina , a rice-growing agricultural center. It received the honorary title of city with a royal decree in 1706.

Main sights

• San Lorenzo. The Gothic basilica, characterized by brick facade, was built by Bartolino da Novara between 1375 and 1380 and renovated in 1840 and in 1916. The two tondoes outside the main entrance are both 15th-century works. In the pilaster strips the portrait of SS. Albin, Amìcus and Amelius are 19th-century copies from a 15th-century polyptych by Paolo da Brescia, a work at first in the Church of S. Albin and now conserved in the Savoy Picture-gallery of Turin. The Church has several artistìc masterpieces inside. Left aisle, first chapel - Here we can find a magnificent wooden Christmas crib with about 80 low relieved figures (beginnings of the fifteenth century) by Lorenzo da Mortara.
• S. Croce. It was founded in 1080, outside the walls of the village under the patronage of Pope Gregorius VII, and re-built inside the city walls by following the designs of Pellegrino Tibaldi in 1596. The heavy repairs during the Sixties modified the facade a lot and also the inside (which was aisleless and with side chapels) lose the originality of the design by Tibaldi.
• Sant'Albino, one of the Christian «mother-churches» of the 5th century Lomellina, re-used by Charlemagne as a burial ground for the numerous soldiers who fell in the battle between the Lombard and the Frank armies, on October 12, 773. Among the casualties there were also two paladins of Charlemagne's, Amelius of Alvernia and Amicus from Beyre, whose death inspired a lot of French chansons de geste. In 774 the famous abbott Alkwin Albin added a canonical college to the Church. During the Middle Ages Sant'Albino was a compulsory halting-piace for the pìlgrims going from Britain and France to Rome. The architectural style developed from an originai mingling of the Romanesque style, clearly recognizable in the apse, with the Renaissance style, to be found in the facade and in the nave. Against the southern side of the portico of the facade, is a building, perhaps a part of the ancient monastery. Beside the church, there are the ruins of the cloister, a brick open gallery with wooden architraves and with a 14th-century Gothic window decorated with rural motives.