Don Bosco entrusted the creation of the first altarpiece to Giovanni Battista Bonetti, a young man fresh out of the Albertina Academy. The canvas by Bonetti remained on the altar for a few decades. In 1898, Fr Michael Rua ‘sent’ it to the newly founded institute in Caserta.
Already in 1896 Fr Rua had changed the name of the chapel and dedicated it to Saint Francis de Sales, entrusting the execution of the new altar to Crescentino Caselli.
The third change took place in 1956, when, with the canonisation of St Dominic Savio, this altar was chosen. Nothing was changed but the altarpiece entrusted to artist Crida. In 1917, the young man's bones were moved from the cemetery in Mondonio in to the Basilica and placed in an alabaster casket placed under one of the pylons of the dome opposite the pulpit and enriched with a plaster bas-relief by sculptor Pietro Cellini, where the young man was depicted in front of Don Bosco saying "God wants me to be a saint".
The transformations of the 1940s also affected the young saint's tomb: it was moved to the chapel and the bas-relief was replaced by a marble statue by the sculptor Arrighini di Pietrasanta.
Source: Salesian Bulletin
