Groups of visitors wishing to visit the architectural complex of the former Banedettina Abbey, on dates other than those foreseen in the opening calendar, can still book a visit, with at least a couple of days' notice.

The abbey of Villar San Costanzo was the beating heart of the Benedictine monks and of the economy of the Villarese area. The parish is located at the gates of the town and is important for the precious crypt, the chapel of San Giorgio beautifully frescoed by the painter Pietro da Saluzzo in 1469, the reliquary containing the marble slab soaked in the blood of San Costanzo. Romanesque building, with Gothic bell tower and Baroque façade, contains centuries of history at a glance. Characteristic is the patronal feast of 12 September, dedicated to Saints Vittore and Costanzo, with a religious procession escorted by Roman soldiers on horseback in period costumes.

the Abbey was founded in 712 by the will of the Lombard King Aripert II. It suffered a first destruction during the Saracen invasion of the Cuneo plain, like all the abbey buildings in the area. What was the real consistency of the buildings around this time can be deduced from what remains of the abbey complex; it consisted of three communicating bodies: the church, the convent and the houses of the peasants; all enclosed in a boundary wall. After the destruction of the Saracens and a first reconstruction in the eleventh century, in particular with Adelaide di Susa, the complex suffered subsequent damage with the war between Manfredo IV of Saluzzo and the Angevins at the beginning of the fourteenth century.

The new reconstruction of the monastery, the church and the village was the work of Abbot Dragone Costantia of Costigliole between 1316 and 1341; at the death of the abbot the conventual life declined. Around 1450 the abbot Giorgio Costantia of Costigliole restored the crumbling structures and had a funerary chapel built in the right aisle and he called the painter Pietro da Saluzzo to fresco it. You can admire the frescoes and the marble ark that the abbot Giorgio had sculpted by the brothers Stefano Costanzo and Maurizio Zabreri, at the same time as the construction of the chapel.

From the chapel of San Giorgio, a stone staircase leads to the crypt divided into three naves, with rows of seven isolated columns surmounted by capitals that support the rounded archivolts resting on ten other columns leaning against the perimeter wall. Above the crypt there are the three apses of the three original naves and close to the right apse in the presbyteral area there is the Romanesque bell tower.

In 1722 the architect Francesco Gallo di Mondovì was commissioned to rebuild the church and this involved the insertion of the new baroque structure in the central nave. However, with his innovative intervention, Gallo had spared the apses which were the object of restoration only in 1859 when the Confraternity was built with two symmetrical semicircular walls, opposite the apses of the left and central aisles, of which the structure remains almost intact today. external (neoclassical portal) and internal. In 1978-79, during the restoration of the Costanzia chapel, the frescoes of the stories of San Giorgio were brought to light. Externally the church clearly shows its origins and its evolution. The apse and the bell tower are of clear Romanesque origin, while the nineteenth-century intervention of the facade of the Confraternity with a triangular tympanum leaning against the bell tower on the northern side can be seen. The main body of the building dates back to the Baroque period, while the facade of the same period underwent nineteenth-century decorations in the decorations.The church is composed of a central nave from which two side altars open, one on the right and one on the left.

From the right aisle you enter the Costanzia chapel, where there are the frescoes of the stories of San Giorgio. The important pictorial complex of the Costanzia chapel can be briefly described as follows: on each sail of the cross vault an evangelist is depicted seated and in the act of writing the beginning of his own Gospel; on the wall of the ancient altar: the Madonna enthroned with her Son, between saints and martyrs; San Giorgio baptizing the Selenites and beheading the Saint; on the wall to the right of the altar: stories from the life of St. George; on the intrados of the arches: roundels with saints, heraldic shields of the Costanzia, dedicatory inscription and signature of Pietro da Saluzzo; on the external walls of the chapel: stories from the life of St. George; on the pillar in front of the chapel: the stigmata of San Francesco.

List of frescoes in the Costanzia Chapel with the stories of San Giorgio (the latter taken from the "Golden Legend" by Jacopo da Varagine - 1260).

1. Fighting of St. George with the dragon; 2. Transport of the dragon's body; 3. Meeting between San Giorgio and Daziano; 4. Torture of St. George; 5. Request for help pending torture; 6. New meeting between St. George and the Emperor; 7. Liberation from wheel torture; 8. Daziano tries to win the friendship of Saint George; 9. Prayer of the saint in front of the temple and its collapse with its idols; 10. Confession of the faith by Alexandria; 11. Martyrdom of Alexandria; 12. Resurrection of the dead; 13. Baptism of the departed; 14. Enthroned Madonna; 15. Martyrdom of the Saint.