Background
San Costanzo is counted among the Christianized soldiers of the Theban Legion sent to Agaunum (in the current Martigny area) to tame the Bagaudi rioters. Among the survivors of the decimations inflicted on the legionaries for disobedience to orders contrasting with their Christian faith, Constantius would have reached Val Maira with some comrades, eventually incurring, as a consequence of the evangelical diffusion undertaken there, in new persecutions. The last one left, in 303 or 305 AD Costanzo was beheaded in the place that today houses the San Costanzo al Monte complex. In local tradition it is September 18, today the day of celebration of the saint as the patron saint of Villar San Costanzo. The relics of the legionary Costanzo, originally kept in a chapel erected by the first faithful, would later be transferred to a new structure rebuilt for this purpose, in the same place of martyrdom, by the same Benedictine monks who founded the Abbey of San Costanzo in the valley. historically dating back to the year 712, the last year of the reign of the Lombard Ariperto II. After a period of increasing role of the Benedictine order in the remaining Lombard period and under the subsequent Caroligian dominion, a progressive fall of the territorial defensive towards external predators allows invasions and looting throughout Piedmont. In the 10th century, the Benedictine possessions of Villar were also subject to destruction, traditionally ascribed to Saracen colonizers from their settlement of Frassineto, near present-day Saint Tropez. New and more solid architectural solutions, the first Romanesque one and the Gothic one in the following centuries, support the reconstruction of both the Benedictine abbey and the connected Sanctuary of San Costanzo al Monte, whose parallel history is marked by the sharing of alternating splendors and ruins. In 1091 the start of a first series of reconstructions was historically placed, also with the re-use of materials of the pre-existing structure, by the will of Adelaide di Susa, the last descendant of King Arduino and protector of many Piedmontese monasteries. In 1190 Villar placed himself under the protection of the Episcopal Church of Milan, against possible interference by the neighboring Marquises of Saluzzo and Marquesses of Busca. The protection will entail a series of benefits including, probably, the contribution of Lombard workers and ingenuity in the subsequent series of construction interventions in the Romanesque complex of the Sanctuary of San Costanzo al Monte, of which many architectural solutions remain as evidence. In particular, with the construction of the upper part of the church in reproduction of the plan of the underlying crypt, that structure with overlapping floors takes shape for which the Church of San Costanzo al Monte currently constitutes an uncommon example. The conflicts that already troubled the following century, aggravated by climatic adversities and epidemics that mark the beginning of the 14th century, did not spare the Benedictine complex of Villar San Costanzo. Of the subsequent reconstructions and modifications made to the Sanctuary of San Costanzo al Monte in the 14th century, the pointed arches and the building to the right of the entrance door to the courtyard, bear witness to the change in style derived from the Gothic architecture which, born in France already in the twelfth century, it has meanwhile also spread to Italy. After a new succession of decadence and new interventions both of restoration and enrichment, in 1473 the death of Abbot Giorgio Costanzia marks the end of the protection of the Archdiocese of Milan. With its transformation into a Commenda, the last period of splendor of the abbey's autonomy ends with the 15th century in a theater of contention between the Marquises of Saluzzo and the emerging Dukes of Savoy, until the definitive suppression of monastic life, which took place in 1606. The relics of the decapitated saint, according to tradition found in the crypt of San Costanzo al Monte by a necromancer in 1580, are now kept in the parish church of San Pietro in Vincoli. The current facade of the Church of San Costanzo al Monte, frescoed with the image of the Saint with the characteristic emblems of the Theban legion (palm of martyrdom, sword and banner with red cross on a white background), recalls the changes made in the 17th and XVIII, which probably also date back to the external buildings on the south wall of the Church. With the Napoleonic era, the transition to private property marks the beginning of radical tampering and changes in the intended use of the San Costanzo al Monte complex. The fountain in front of the church and the building date back to the 19th century. After a protracted state of neglect, in the 1980s the Church was subject to acquisitions of parts of private property by the Provincial Administration and, after some archaeological excavations were carried out in 1994, some initial consolidation and restoration work was carried out up to the interventions completed in 2005.
