Costigliole d'Asti - The Parish Church of Saint Margaret

In a parchment of the "Codex Astensis", dated 1207, it is reported about the existence of a locality named “Santa Margherita” near the village “Cavorro”. This ancient village, no longer existing nowadays, was once located over the nearby hill called "Bricco del Vicario", and was equipped with a small medieval church, dedicated to Saint Martin, which was a parish church at least until the mid-fifteenth century.

On the site of Cavorro is located nowadays a tower-cistern which was built by the parish priest Pola at the end of the eighteenth century. In the writings relating to the pastoral visit of 1668 the small oratory of Saint Margaret is declared as newly built, reasonably after the plague of 1630-1632. During the second half of the seventeenth century, also because of the population increase, the burghers felt the need to have a larger sacred building. Thus, a new church was built between 1674 and 1675 in place of previously existing one, mainly thank to the will of the lords Giovanni Montersino and Giovanni Terzuolo. The parish priest of Costigliole don Ponzio blessed it in 1676. The small church was equipped with a porch attached to the façade.

The church, because of its limited dimensions, was rebuilt again between 1709 and 1720; construction works were affected by long interruptions, due to the difficult political-social climate and the clashes related to Spanish succession war. The bell tower, coeval with the main building of the church, was increased in height at the end of the nineteenth century, restored in 1927 and enriched with three bells in 1952. The adjoining parish house was built in 1875.

The village of Saint Margaret became a parish in 1950 and the first parish priest was Don Giovanni Olmi, of venerable memory. The current pictorial decoration is due to the conservative restoration works carried out in 1959 by the decorators Dante Freddi and Gianni Piva. Inside the bright interior of the church, worthy of note are the main stucco altar, made by Antonio Catenazzi from Mendrisio – Lugano – in 1731, and the painting in the choir, depicting Saint Margaret from Antiochia, which was painted by the artist Michele Antonio Milocco from Turin and can be dated back to the third decade of the eighteenth century.