A few miles from one of New England’s most popular history museums stands a stately Catholic church with a long and storied background of its own.

The church’s third pastor, Father Louis Triganne, set about building this edifice on March 25, 1911, the feast of the Annunciation of the Lord. It would replace the original wooden structure that gave the parish its first home back in 1870. The parish had grown fast, thanks largely to the waves of French-Canadian immigrants flowing from the farms of Quebec to the mills of Massachusetts.

Today this church dedicated to Our Lady — Notre Dame Church of Southbridge, Mass. — is a neighbor of Old Sturbridge Village, a regionally renowned attraction that whisks visitors back in time with a careful re-creation of small-town life in New England, circa 1830.

Like that secular tourist destination (and educational facility), Notre Dame is no slouch in the craftsmanship department. Father Triganne contracted the gifted Roman artist Gonippo Raggi to design the interior. Raggi, who was at the time earning acclaim as “America’s Michelangelo,” created 32 dazzling murals for the Romanesque barrel ceiling and walls. He also painted the Stations of the Cross and designed the elaborate stucco decorations that dot the interior.

Even the exterior marble facing has an interesting history. The pastor got a Massachusetts quarry to cut these oversized “bricks” from lots of leftover tombstones the government had ordered for soldiers killed in the Spanish-American War. Mercifully, the war ended before the stones were needed.

To complement them, all the entrances have ornamental bronze doors reminiscent of French Romanesque cathedrals. They’re beautifully cast with paneled reliefs of the mysteries of the Rosary and with the 12 Apostles lining their borders.

Inside, angels sculpted in relief number in the hundreds. They unfurl scrolls, spread their wings above the Corinthian columns and pray fervently at each Station of the Cross. Cherubs attend to Marian symbols, hold garlands, peer from loggias and smile from arches.

Grace Place

Massive angels stand guard near the ceiling while rows of lighter spirits string fancy wreaths together around IHS emblems as they effortlessly support the full Communion railings.

These angels blend easily with profusions of acanthus leaves, scrolls, garlands, florals and specially sculpted lines that curve and swirl all the way to the elaborate plaster frames around the ceiling murals.

They’re all part of the graceful Rococo style, with its endless sculpted stucco decorations and filigrees. This style, popular in early 18th-century France, is highly unusual for church decoration — especially in the United States — because it gives the appearance of delicateness.

But Raggi was surely inspired in the way he designed and blended these elements with Baroque and Renaissance styles to communicate the availability of spiritual graces in this place.

Though Raggi is not today a household name, many sacred-art historians consider his work on a par with that of the best-known masters down through the ages.

Judging by Notre Dame of Southbridge, it’s not hard to see why. One unforgettable image shows Pope Pius X giving the body of Christ to young first communicants, a practice he instituted.

This painting is also somewhat prophetic, as it’s believed to be the first permanent artistic depiction of Pius X in this country and it was rendered long before he was canonized in the 1950s.

One feature that followed the flocks from Canada is Notre Dame’s grand Casavant organ. With nearly 4,400 pipes, it must have struck its first hearers as a foreshadowing intimation of the very voice of God.

Another sign of the site’s forebears: French titles underline the Stations of the Cross. Raggi painted each station while he was confined in Rome during World War I. He shipped them to the church and his brother Palamedo installed them in their elaborate Renaissance casings. The sorrowful face of Jesus during his Passion is carved in relief atop these casings.

Father Triganne ordered the marble crosses fixed between the stations. He envisioned how this church would be consecrated. It happened on a Marian feast in 1950, the Maternity of the Virgin Mary — just as construction started on the feast of the Annunciation and the subsequent dedication took place on the feast of the Visitation in 1916.

Mary, Life-Size

Professor Raggi’s Renaissance-Rococo details carry to the fancy, half-fluted Corinthian columns that float along the nave and to the ornate loggias that underline all clerestory windows, then circle the transepts and sanctuary.

These fine details are highlighted at Christmas, Easter and occasional weddings with 1,500 lights that outline moldings and the four sanctuary arches. Other times, sunlight filters into the nave through stained-glass windows from Munich, Germany. In place of biblical scenes, these translucent windows of delicate blues and greens contain golden flowers, pink roses and symbols of the Holy Eucharist.

These windows also light the expansive main sacristy, which doubles as a large chapel for weekday Masses. The medallion ceiling is a replica of Donatello’s 15th-century ceiling for San Lorenzo Church in Florence.

Renovations after Vatican II focused on the sanctuary and its new altar, and on the adjoining shrines to either side. The corpus on the sanctuary cross is from the original 19th-century church.

The new Blessed Sacrament Shrine reverentially brings together marbles of rare violet and red Verona. The worthy tabernacle at its center is lovingly carved from deep gold Siena marble and stands on a golden marble column inlaid with a mosaic spiral.

While the church’s splendor creates a celestial court for prayer and worship, the new Shrine of Notre Dame next to the Blessed Sacrament Shrine is pristine and simple. The life-sized statue of Mary, which once floated high above the main altar, now stands on a marble base supported by a column of gorgeous blue alabaster.

This lovely shrine allows for deep prayer and contemplation of God and his saints, Mary foremost among them. Here we can share our hearts and prayers quietly with Notre Dame. Now that’s an opportunity worth annunciating over.

Staff writer Joseph Pronechen

writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.