The Antonelli family was one of the most important in Maggiora, for generations involved in the field of notary and attorney. During the Napoleonic period, his father, a devoted supporter of the Savoia family, was obliged to give up to his town-clerk position in Ghemme and go back to Maggiora, then move to Milano in order to educate his children. The social position the family had and the important family relationships in Novara, created with the marriages of Antonelli’s sisters, permitted him to obtain important assignments (in Ghemme and Fontaneto for example). The first-son Antonio (1792-2876), an attorney but also a good trades-man, owned a crockery factory; Alessandro (1798-1888)became an architect; Ercole (1802-), a surgeon, was a high esteemed professional and worked in the Civil and Military Hospital of Novara; Giovanni (1805-) became surveyor and agriculturalist; Francesco (1815-1892) was a lawyer. Though they all lived in different places, they would frequently go back to Maggiora. Before going to Rome, where he was assigned a six-year project, Alessandro Antonelli planned the stairs leading to the scurolo of Sant’Agapito, a construction along the east wing of the parish church, which was built in 1817 according to designs attributed to the abbot Giueppe Zanoja. Because of the crypt below, the scurolo’s pavement had reached a superior height than the one of the church’s floor, and the sudden death of the abbot had obstructed any solution to this problem. In the 30’s he also did the interior decoration, and designed the Saint’s monumental arch. In 1832 he was asked to do some maintenance work to the streets, which two years later had was still not been done. In order not to lose his position, he created a project, not only respecting what he had been asked but re-forming the entire road network and improving its travelling conditions (a difficult task given the roughness of the land). Notwithstanding controversies, Antonelli managed to conclude the works between 1835 and 1836, also carrying out an intervention on the principal square, which, as he said “gives majesty to the church, to the square and to the house and brings great comfort to the entire village”.