Travel Guide Vercelli

A city with a notorious historical past, Vercelli has preserved an urban fabric rich in interesting architectural evidence. Delimited by elegant avenues traced on the site of the ancient walls, the city is worth a visit. Its three museums are of great interest to art lovers: the Borgogna Museum, which has the second most important collection of paintings in Piedmont, the Leone Museum with its archaeological remains (also on display in the new MAC museum), and the Museum of the Treasure of the Duomo, which houses an important collection of sacred objects. Beautiful churches decorate the city center, such as the Basilica of Sant'Andrea and the Duomo (dedicated to Sant'Eusebio). Under the authority of the Savoys in the eighteenth century, it is through the care of famous architects such as Filippo Juvarra and Benedetto Alfieri that Vercelli witnesses the introduction of the Baroque in its urban setting. Vercelli is also located in the heart of a vast agricultural area where rice, an essential ingredient for the preparation of delicious risotto, has been cultivated for over five centuries. Together with Novara and Pavia (in Lombardy), Vercelli forms the area known as the "Golden Triangle of Rice": 60% of Italian rice production comes from this region. Finally, more than a thousand pilgrims who travel the Via Francigena (which connects Canterbury to Rome) stop every year in Vercelli, a stage on the route. The famous Vercelli book (to be seen in the Museum of the Treasure of the Duomo) would have arrived in the city by this route...