The valley of Novalesa coincides with the cold and short Cenischia Valley forming a side-basin of the Dora Riparia Valley between the town of Susa and the pass of Moncenisio. The steep but enchanting alpine setting, characterized by high slopes and natural falls of striking beauty, exalts the secluded fascination of the monastic centre that, according to recent archaeological research, originated in the VIII century on a previous Gallic Roman settlement. The Abbey of Novalesa is at present an interesting complex of constructions, including a central core with the church, the monastery and four chapels scattered in the surrounding park. The original structure was conceived as a series of churches spread in the area of the Abbey and a conventual building still visible nowadays in the cloister, connected to the more important Abbey of San Pietro. Of the oldest facade there are evident traces in the remains of the abbey wall, whose standing construction is baroque, whereas, as regards the Romanesque part, the cloister keeps a superb XII century lunette and abundant remains of the late Gothic walls. The isolated chapels show the most ancient structures of the whole complex.

Famous is the chapel of S. Eldrado, abbot of Novalesa, for its precious frescoes datable at the end of the XI century and the beginning of the XII century. Among the oldest, the chapel of San Michele, in an elevated position, still preserves pictorial fragments of the XI century; the chapel of San Salvatore, at the southern end of the enclosure, is used now as an ossuary of the fallen. The only building outside the monastic enclosure, the chapel of Mary Magdalene, formerly dedicated to Santa Maria, according to the monastic chronicles, constituted the extreme limit beyond which no woman was allowed to enter the area of the convent.

commissioning was more concrete and effective: some of the most important Gothic frescoes belongto those years; they can still be seen today in the abbatial complex and some frescoes by Antonio of Lhony stand out among them.After the Council of Trento the disciplinary crisis that hit traditional monasticism led to the settling in 1600 of a new Cistercian family that was in charge of the abbey till the time of Napoleonic suppression.With the auction of the ecclesiastical endowments after the Casati law and with the dispersion of a large part of monastic properties, those buildings were turned into a centre of thermal and hydrotherapeutic care. Only in 1972 the Benedictines coming from the island of San Giorgio ( Venice), returned to live in the abbey. Today it is a spiritual Benedictine centre and a precious laboratory for the restoration of ancient books.