History
The name comes from the Latin “bonus vicinus” and some state that it should indicate the good neighbourhood relationships. The legend tells that the Bonvicino inhabitants, survived the plague in 1630, helped the population of the neighbouring municipality of Belvedere Langhe, but this fact is not historically documented and moreover the inhabitants were called Bonvicinesi already before the 1000 year. Another legend tells inhabitants gained their name due to their foolishness and not for their generosity. The only historical events attested date to the Middle Ages, when Bonvicino passed from the marquis of Monferrato to the Visconti, which conquered it with the force in 1432. Since then there were only dismemberments and arguments. Lastly the fief was property of the Domenico Belli’s family, great chancellor of the Savoy in Alba and to the Corte family, extinguished in the last century.
Bonvicino lives in the name of harmony with nature and has been marked by depopulation, losing about sixty percent of the population in the last thirty years.
Churches
The parish church dedicated to the San Giacomo and San Cristoforo Confraternity of the White Penitents
- The parish church is those dedicated to the San Giacomo and San Cristoforo and it is located in the centre of the municipality of Bonvicino. The seventeenth-century building has three navies and a façade interspersed by pilasters, the portal is framed by baroque decorations. After the earthquake of 1887, under the lead of the quantity surveyor Giovanni Battista Schellino, the church was restored and enlarged. It conserves the wood statue created by Antonio Roasio.
- Just in front of the parish church of San Giacomo and San Cristoforo stands the seventeenth-century “Confraternity of the White Penitents”, it has a simply façade with pilasters which hold the triangular gable. It was quite common in the countries in the Langhe the presence, in proximity of the parish house managed by the church, of a confraternity (White or Black Penitents), as a laic patronage of assistance, managed by common people. The portal conserves partly the stucco decorations with a pediment surmounted by an oculus. The apsidal interior is simply decorated with pilasters. It is used as head office by the Comitato Festeggiamenti and it currently hosts cultural events, small exhibitions and concerts.