Basilica of Corpus Domini
church building in Turin, Italy
The Basilica of Corpus Domini (Italian: Basilica del Corpus Domini) is a Roman Catholic church in Turin, Italy, built to celebrate the "Miracle of the Eucharist" which, according to various sources, occurred in 1453 during the war between the Duchy of Savoy and France.
History
The event which led to the construction of the church occurred on 6 June 1453 during the war between Louis of Savoy and France. A group of French soldiers had plundered the main church in Exilles, a town in the Val di Susa. On 6 June, the day of the Feast of Corpus Christi, they went to Turin to sell the booty. The donkey which transported the sacramental bread from the Exilles' church fell on the ground and the Holy Spirit rose and illuminated the square from the air.
To celebrate the event, the painting of the Holy Name of Jesus was painted on the four gates of the city but this was deemed insufficient, and in 1509 a small chapel was soon commissioned on the present church's site. However, nothing was built until 1521, when Innocenzo Cybo, Archbishop of Turin, ordered the construction of a small oratory by Matteo Sanmicheli. This was demolished in 1607 to make room to the modern basilica.
The design of the new church was commissioned to Ascanio Vitozzi. Amedeo di Castellamonte collaborated in the designing of the façade.
The public source identifies “Basilica of Corpus Domini” as church building in Turin, Italy. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Basilica, Corpus and Domini.
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Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2887164. VIAF identifies the subject as 124545608. The Library of Congress control number is n2005053280. Authority coordinates are 45.073, 7.683. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1453, 1509, 1521 and 1607.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Basilica of Corpus Domini” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.