Themed thread
The master builders of Val d’Intelvi and Lake Como
Half the churches in the valleys were built by master builders from elsewhere.
Those who physically built these churches were very often not from here. The names that recur in the entries come from a precise area, Val d’Intelvi and the shores of Lake Como, and they are the same ones found at work across half of Europe during the Renaissance.
The most present is Adamo da Laino, whom the sources also call the man from Intelvi: he rebuilt the parish church of Malé between 1491 and 1497, led the reconstruction of San Marco in the same village after the consecration of 1482, and redesigned San Lorenzo at Dimaro. Simone da Laino, for his part, directed the Gothic vaults of Mezzana in 1536 together with Montori da Menaggio. Pietro Carlon of San Fedele in Val d’Intelvi rebuilt San Floriano at Arsio from 1512 onwards, and his name is written in the choir next to that date: a signature, which was not customary at the time.
From Lake Como came Pietro Bianchi of Como, who designed the church of Sfruz, whose first stone dates from 1729, and in 1781 renovated the bell tower of Revò; also from Como were the craftsmen credited with San Michele Arcangelo in Mezzocorona, completed in 1722, and Filippo Boni of Como, who made the stucco work of a church in Ossana between 1718 and 1723. More generically Lombard were the craftsmen who frescoed the parish church of Ossana from 1495 and those who decorated Sant’Antonio abate at Romeno; at Pellizzano it was the confraternities of the Battuti and the Disciplini who brought them into the valley between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
11 places where you meet it
- Chiesa dei Santi Pietro e PaoloVal di SoleThe first documentary mention of the place of worship in Mezzana dates from 1211.
- Chiesa della Natività di MariaVal di SoleKnown in the village as the church of the Madonna delle Grazie, it was consecrated in 1474 at the end of a radical restoration: the original building was already mentioned in a document of 1265, and traces of it can be recognised in a walled-up window on the east façade.
- Chiesa di San FlorianoVal di NonThe ancient pieve of Arsio is mentioned from 1241, but it was probably built earlier.
- Chiesa di San LorenzoVal di SoleThe oldest document that mentions this church dates from 1264, but a fragment of Carolingian-era fresco on the presbytery shows that the building already existed in the ninth century.
- Chiesa di San MarcoVal di SoleIt is the parish church of Magras, a hamlet of Malé, and the first place of worship was dedicated to Saint Giles: the fourteenth-century fresco fragments still visible on the outer walls say so.
- Chiesa di San Michele ArcangeloPiana RotalianaThe cemetery church of Mezzocorona was completed in 1722 on the Doss San Michele, where the community's graveyard lies.
- Chiesa di San VigilioVal di SoleThe pieve of Ossana is first documented in 1183 and is among the oldest in the upper Val di Sole: the documents call it erecta ab immemorabili, built from time immemorial.
- Chiesa di Sant'Antonio AbateVal di NonThe first small building dedicated to Sant'Antonio abate in Romeno is thought to have been a simple single-hall structure built in the 14th century.
- Chiesa di Sant'Antonio di PadovaVal di SoleIt rose where a small oratory of the Reformed Friars once stood, of which little is known: an altar of it, erected by the confraternity of the Carmine, was consecrated on 19 August 1649.
- Chiesa di Santa Maria AssuntaVal di SoleThe parish church of Malé appears for the first time in a lease contract of 1178, which describes it as already existing and places its presence before that date.
- Chiesa di Santo StefanoVal di NonThe pieve of Revò is first mentioned in a document of 1128, and it seems that the church was rebuilt in 1323; around 1480 the bell tower was restored.
The links between these places come from our entries, where every fact has been checked against the sources. The entries are written one at a time: this thread will grow with them.