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You are here: Briga Novarese
The small town of Briga Novarese, with less than 3.000 inhabitants, is the first village that you come across along Agogna stream`s banks when the river flows into the plain. The built-up area is bounded on the east by the first hills of the Vergante. Two are the hills to which Briga`s traditions are connected: San Colombano and San Grato.The remains of a castle, whose construction dates back to the XIIth century, lie on the hill of San Colombano. Situated on the route that rises toward Ossola, it had to be the control outpost of Biantrate Counts, the family who dominated Briga’s area in the past. Their domination didn’t last long because of the many attacks by the neighbouring territories, such as Novara and Vercelli. Beside the remains of the destroyed castle, a small and charming rural church lies, San Colombano, which is likely as old as the castle, although it was rearranged at the end of the XVIth century.
Outside the built-up area, Briga conserves a real jewel of the Romanesque art, the small church-oratory of San Tommaso (St. Thomas) which lies detached on the top of a low hill.
It is really an old oratory: it might date back to the XIth century and it is made of stone and bricks, with a sole nave, a semicircular apse and a saddle roof façade. In the past, the oratory comprised the bell tower too, today lost.
The interior is adorned with a series of precious frescoes of the XIth century, considered as some of the oldest in the whole Piedmont: the frescos lie in the apse and on the triumphal arch and they portray different characters of the Bible: the Apostles, the Virgin Mary, Jesus, the Anglels, the Dove, the symbols of the Evangelists. Above these characters, divided into groups because of the presence of two small windows, a wide decorative fillet with geometric designs encloses the representation.
The village, once mainly devoted to agriculture, is today a centre of industrial and trade activities that wind along the national road of Lake Orta, chiefly connected with taps and fittings` field.
The city-centre lies around the Parish Church of San Giovanni Battista (John the Baptist), rebuilt in the XVIth century but certainly older, and then recently enlarged and rearranged during the twentieth century.
An old village, an agricultural centre risen along Agogna stream, full of hills once cultivated by the peasants, as many terracings testify. Today, the village consists of residential neighbourhoods and industrial and trade areas; it is modern and active, though it conserves the signs of its charming past. Jewels of history and art just near the built-up area, on the neighbouring hills, charming woody rises full of history.