Chiesa di Nostra Signora del Suffragio

In Italy, Chiesa di Nostra Signora del Suffragio rises with balanced round arches and sober brick volumes. Its neoromanesque design gives the nineteenth-century church a clear, measured presence. Three naves unfold beneath cross vaults, while a dome rests above an octagonal drum. Eight statues stand around its exterior.

Francesco Faà di Bruno developed the surrounding complex to shelter and assist working women. Construction proceeded in phases as funding allowed, and Antonio Tortona’s statue of Our Lady of Suffrage stands behind the main altar. The dome also hosted a Foucault pendulum demonstration, using a twenty-five-kilogram sphere suspended from a long, fine wire. The experiment showed the Earth’s rotation.

A remarkably slender campanile rises beside the church to about seventy-five metres. Roughly three hundred wooden steps climb through the restored tower, where four clock faces measure about two metres across. Bombing on 8 August 1943 caused partial destruction, but the church remained in use.