One of the greatest metaphors about LIFE in all its fullness is probably the metaphor about a JOURNEY. Traveling is synonymous with KNOWLEDGE, the search for happiness, the search for truth itself, and the MEANING of life.
Christian culture translates this metaphor of life into a more precise word: PILGRIMAGE, a journey that has not only a point of departure, but also a precise point of arrival. A sanctuary, the tomb of a saint, a place for miracles, an encounter with the sacred and a return to the FINAL DESTINATION: the afterlife. The same PROCESSIONS are nothing more than small local pilgrimages. Every procession is opened by the CROSS, behind which all God’s people process. Our journey departs on 5 December 254 with the martyrdom of Saint Dalmatius, the first evangelizer. The first Christian message flowers on his tomb, expanding to a vast territory divided into parishes as well as religious and laical communities, continuing to today through the building of the diocese of Cuneo. Over the course of the centuries, the buildings have been modified, adapting to the city’s needs: facing seven sieges, to which Cuneo resists with tenacity. Even the religious buildings elect to provide defense, giving birth to rooms like this one: underground magazines constructed under the sacristies in the hopes that the enemies would not bomb the places of worship.
We will prepare ourselves for an interesting journey, complex and well structured, made up not only of the sum of many fragments, but of the profound awesomeness that is created looking passionately and intelligently around them... Have a nice journey!
The Magazine
Over the course of time, the city’s strategic and military needs required the fortress to be equipped with suitable places to house the military armament complex and store the powders. The central power intervened, identifying the sectors of the city less exposed to attacks by the besiegers’ artillery. For this reason, the powders were often stored in underground locations in civil and religious buildings. This was the case of the so-called Parish Magazine (1731) or in the spaces beneath the Saint Claire Monastery of the Church of Saint Ambrose (1784) as well as the Church of Saint Sebastian. These spaces had to guarantee the storage of the powders in a dry and cool place, and were called bombproof in the documents, since the walls were very thick and often had a sturdy covering.
The siege of 1691
- CUNEO, SANCTUARY OF OUR LADY OF THE ANGELS, APPARITION OF THE BLESSED ANGEL DURING THE SIEGE OF 1691 (EARLY XVIII CENTURY)
During the siege by the French troops in June of 1691, the blessed Angelo Carletti appeared “tum supra muros civitatis...tum supra turris, brachiis in formam Crucis espansis...” protecting and defending Cuneo from the bombs launched by the enemies. The miraculous vision is given by local accounts, but also by the testimonies of the besiegers collected during the proceedings of Carletti’s beatification.