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The Sesia magmatic system of northwest Italy allows direct study of the links between silicic plutonism and volcanism in the upper crust and the coeval interaction of mafic intrusions with the deep crust. In this paper, we focus on the chemical stratigraphy of the pre-intrusion crust, which can be inferred from the compositions of crustal-contaminated mafic plutonic rocks, restitic crustal material incorporated by the complex, and granitic rocks crystallized from anatectic melts. These data sources independently indicate that the crust was compositionally stratified prior to the intrusion of an 8-km-thick gabbroic to dioritic body known as the Mafic Complex, with mica and K-feldspar abundance decreasing with depth and increasing metamorphic grade. Reconsideration of published zircon age data suggest that the igneous evolution initiated with sporadic pulses at around 295 Ma, when mafic sills intruded deep …