Saint John the Baptist parish church

The parish of Gressoney-Saint-Jean was established in 1660 by Pope Alexander VI, who divided it from that of Issime, on which it depended up to that time. The church was built in 1515 on the foundations of an older chapel, as appears from the gothic inscription on the facade: “Hoc opus fecerunt magistri Anthon Goyeti de Issima et Cristanus filius eius, anno Domini MDXV”. During the first decades of the 1700’s, the building was elevated and extended with the addition of two asymmetrical side naves (the one on the left is shorter due to the presence of the bell tower from the sixteenth century).

Interesting elements:

• the 13th century wooden crucifix
• the German baroque goldsmith works of the small museum of sacred art.
• the bell tower: it is previous to the sixteenth century construction of the church and was raised in the 1700’s. The sides end with triangular tympanums that hold up a copper spire, from 1903, in pyramidical shape, surmounted by a cross;
• the Stations of the Cross: sheltered by an arcade in the churchyard, they date back to 1626, but the frescoes are of a later period, work of the Gressonard painter Joseph Anton Christopher Curta (1754-1794), also the author of the Crucifix of the parish church of Verrès and the Madonna of the Rosary located in Arvier. The beautiful stone cross in the middle dates from 1735;
• on the façade there is a bronze bust of Queen Margherita of Savoy, so loved by the Gressonards, solemnly inaugurated on September 9th 1928, in the presence of Prince Umberto of Savoy.