A walk in our city can enhance views covered by the rapid transit of motor cars or by oversight: the church facade behind psychiatric hospital in Via Mazzini opens to the sanctuary dedicated to Our Lady of Grace. The structure dates back to the fifteenth century, is decorated with a mural drawing dedicated to the Madonna del Latte and protected by stucco altarpiece on the high altar and the tomb of Alessandro Tonso (Tortona, 25 March 1761 – Alessandria, 16 May 1820).
Don Tonso history, heir of an ancient noble Ghibelline family, already married to the noblewoman Teresa Cavasanti and then wrapped in the cassock, flows from the First French Revolution at the time of the Restoration.
Don Tonso, head of the municipality of Tortona, liked the investiture as government commissioner for the province of the same name (1799). The appointment was based on the anti-monarchy homily uttered by the Ghibelline priest at the ceremony for the planting of the tree of freedom and preceded the co-optation, two months later, to the departmental administration of Tanaro. After Marengo battle Don Tonso was Turin council (constituent body) officer, prefecture adviser of Marengo department extinct at the débâcle of Napoleon, deputy steward of Alexandria attributed by the Savoy sovereign Vittorio Emanuele I and refused to take care of his favorite studies (philosophy, agriculture, history, numismatics) and geological research on the lower Po valley.
