Constructed in its current structure between 1405 and 1436, the Duomo di Chieri was defined by experts as one of the best and most complete religious architectures related to the Piemontese Gothic current, in its golden era, and known and admired by everybody for its remarkable stylistic worth and for its spire. The church consists of three naves of which the central one is slightly lower than the two lateral ones, according to the widespread custom in the Romanic and Gothic periods. Two rows of chapels develop in a rectangular shape around the small naves, constructed and decorated over various eras. At the present state of studies, two stylistic currents appear to be evident which can explain who worked on the construction of the Duomo, even if no name has actually been allocated to it: the ‘lombardo’ (linked to the work on the Duomo in Milan) and the ‘transalpine Gothic’ (linked to the figure of Duke Amedeo VIII and to the commercial contacts of Chieri with the Franco-Flemish area). The 22 chapels are remarkable as much for their sumptuous richness of furnishings and painting, which represent five centuries of paintings by major artists, as they are for the sculptures from the Gothic, through the Renaissance to the Baroque. The name ‘della Scala’ refers to Maria Assunta in Cielo and the celestial steps down which God descended to man and up which man rises to him.
