Mortara town is famous for its many churches and basilicas of which the most historically important is the 8th century Abbazia di Sant'Albino on the Via Francigena, Today the church, with fifteenth century frescoes and an elegant Renaissance portal, a Romanesque-Gothic belltower, the remains of a cloister with a stone loggia and wooden lintels is all that is left of the abbey together with a number of now dilapidated agricultural buildings linked to the historic monastery.