page_title: Ayas, Aosta Valley
section_title: Religious architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Ayas, Aosta Valley / Monuments and locations of interest / Religious architecture
caption_attribution_description: Final Judice in Lignod church in Ayas AO - Italy
context_page_description: Ayas is a comune sparso in the Aosta Valley region of northwestern Italy, with 1359 inhabitants in 2010.
context_section_description: The Val d'Ayas has been strongly influenced by the Church in the course of its history. Thus, today, it contains more than twenty religious buildings, including churches, chapels, sanctuaries, grottoes and shrines all painted and connected to particular artistic genres. 
  The Church of Saint Martin of Tours in Antagnod is an interesting religious building with an onion dome on François-Marie Dandrès Square, named for the parish priest Dandrès from Fontainemore who expanded the church to its current form. Entirely painted on the inside, it contains sacred works of art, the most important being the high altar. It is all that remains of the old church and is the most imposing and richest of all the baroque altars in the Aosta Valley: it is entirely carved in wood, which is painted and gilt and is divided horizontally into three sections. The top and bottom sections were carved by Valsesiani Gilardi and Minaldi in 1713. This altar has recently undergone a restoration which ended in 2011.
  The Church of Saint Anne in Champoluc is today used as a cinema, but was once the main church of the village. The original chapel to Saint Anne was built in 1715 and the current building by the parish priest François-Marie Dandrès in 1836. Above the nineteenth century doorway, a circular fresco depicting Saint Anne showing the Scripture to Mary with Joachim behind her can be seen. The wooden altar and the frescoes of the old church are now held in a new church building next to the old one.
  The Church of Saint James in Saint-Jacques follows a very old design. At first a small chapel, it was expanded at the wish of Pope Alexander VI in 1500. Later the rich merchants of the village had it painted, but since it was below street level, a number of floods destroyed the frescoes. Today it has been raised up and it is possible to see the remains of the interior frescoes and the exterior walls. In the same square as this church is found a grotto similar to that of Lourdes with a statue of the Madonna inside.
  The Sanctuary of Barmasc as it is seen today dates to 1744. Originally it was dedicated to Mary Magdalene but the people of Ayas have always called it Notre-Dame de Barmasc. For this reason François-Marie Dandrès asked permission to rename it as a sanctuary and name it after Notre-Dame du Bon-Secours (French for "Our Lady of Good Help"). Inside it there are sacred artworks and the altar with the picture of a folk hero on top.
  The Church of Our Lady of Sorrows in Lignod was expanded in 1777 by Jean-Baptiste Prince. However the Last Judgement on the façade was painted by Franz Curta in the nineteenth century. This fresco is based, according to some people, on the Last Judgement of Michelangelo.
caption: The Last Judgment on the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows, Lignod.
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