The bell tower of Santo Stefano stood next to a Romanesque church and belonged to the abbey complex of Benedictine monks, founded in 1044, dedicated to the protomartyr Stefano and the Holy Saviour. The naming comes from a pre-existing church, located in a sub-urban area, donated by the Benedictine monks, maybe in 1042. During the XI century the Benedictines took advantage of other donations given by the authorities and around the middle of the same century the Santo Stefano bell tower and the abbey complex was built. The sequence of six floors of the bell tower, alternate progressively in height with one to three mullioned windows, at the top it culminates in a spire covering and distinguished by refined hanging arches, representing the emblem of the then current abbey power. Up to the modern era the bell tower was preserved from demolition, with the exception of what was done to the spire in 1854, carried out in different moments to other buildings of the abbey complex. In 1558 the Brissac marshal, for city defence reasons, orders that the church be demolished (then rebuilt by the Benedictines). In 1757 the same fate was given to the abbey buildings, abandoned by monks, they were demolished in order to enlarge the Palazzo Perrone garden. During the same period, since the abbey, suppressed in 1802, was still active, the abbot GaspareAmedeo San Martino della Torre decided to transform the surviving granary next to the bell tower into a church, subsequently demolished in 1898 to enlarge the public gardens. Since then the tower has become one of the most important testimonies, once a symbol of the important role the monastic centre had in the religious and social sphere and now a romantic emblem of the city.
Culture Department
Ivrea Municipality