Overview

The Cathedral of Aosta stands on a primitive Romanesque building from the 11th-12th centuries, of which only the two apsidal bell towers remain and, in the attic, an important cycle of frescoes painted between 1030 and 1040 and only recovered between 1986 and 1991. The church was renovated from the 15th century onwards. The façade has a beautiful architectural, sculptural and pictorial façade dating from 1526. The Gothic interior preserves remarkable stained-glass windows from the late 15th and early 16th centuries and some fragments of the 12th-13th century floor mosaic. In the presbytery area, one can admire the sepulchral monument of Thomas II of Savoy, by Stefano Mossettaz (first half of the 15th century) and in particular the carved wooden choir (1469-70). It is at the end of the right aisle that a staircase leads down to the crypt, the oldest part of which dates back to the 9th century and in which 4 of the 10 columns have Longobard and Carolingian capitals. Behind the choir is the Cathedral Treasury Museum, with a collection of important religious objects from various churches in the diocese. On the left side is the Cathedral cloister, with a trapezoidal plan, the construction of which was begun in 1442 by the Savoyard Pietro Berger, on a pre-existing 11th-century cloister, and was completed in 1460 under the guidance of the Aosta Valley sculptor Marcello Gerard