The Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccorso is a Sacred Mountain located in Ossuccio , in the municipality of Tremezzina , dedicated to the Beata Vergine Maria del Soccorso , which is part of the group of nine Sacred Mountains of Piedmont and Lombardy included in 2003 by UNESCO in the list of World Heritage Sites .
History
Since Roman times this place has been attested as a cult center dedicated to Ceres which attracted large influxes of people especially on the ides of September, as reported by Pliny the Younger , consul in the year 100 AD. C. and friend of Emperor Trajan who owned two villas on the Lario . Recent excavations under the sanctuary have highlighted traces of a multi-volumetric layout typical of Roman pagan sanctuaries .
The fourteen chapels , all built between 1629 (or 1635) and 1710 (or 1714), with a central plan, are in Baroque style embellished with 230 stucco statues and terracotta, life-size, made by different artists: Francesco and Agostino Silva (statues from the fifth to the fourteenth chapel), Carlo Gaffuri and Francesco Innocenzo Torriani. The costumes of the statues faithfully reproduce the elegant and popular clothing of the inhabitants of the area at that time.
The chapels represent the Mysteries of the Rosary and lead to the sanctuary which represents the fifteenth stage and is dedicated to the Assumption of the Mother of God .
Description
This complex is located on the western shore of Lake Como , 25 km from the city of the same name , in the municipal area of Ossuccio .
It lies on a cliff 419 meters above sea level , facing the Comacina island .
It is completely isolated from any other construction, surrounded by fields, olive tree plantations and woods.
The sanctuary
«The Sanctuary of the Beata Vergine del Soccorso, in Isola Ossuccio, on the western shore of the lake, is above all a place of prayer for vocations of particular consecration»
( John Paul II , Regina Caeli, 5 May 1996 )
Included in the list of shrines and votive temples of the Diocese of Como , the sanctuary is built on impervious terrain, on harsh and wild rocks.
The building is located in the place where a previous place of worship already stood.
The basement of the sanctuary incorporates a section of a previous road.
The main body of the church was completed in 1537, while the apse and the two arms of the church are later works. The high bell tower was completed in 1719 , after 25 years of work: it is the work of the Ticino architect Giovanni Battista Bianchi .
The hall has a single nave , made up of four bays ; It is accessed through a portico on the facade . Inside , the nave is decorated with pilasters with stucco capitals , statues and Baroque-style marble . In particular, the decorative apparatus of the ceiling , with its elegant stuccoes and its frescoed compartments , constitutes a notable example of baroque art aimed at celebrating the Marian cult : the main scenes are dedicated to the Assumption and the Coronation of the Virgin ; other compartments contain figures of Angels with scrolls and Musician Angels . The ceiling frescoes, together with those of the counter-façade ( Birth of the Virgin and two Prophets on the sides) and those of the triumphal arch (the Annunciation , on the right, and the Visitation on the left), are the work of Salvatore Pozzi di Puria.
The two-tone floor dates back to 1655 and is made of white Musso and black Varenna marble .
On the left wall, in the middle of the nave, there is a marble side altar, above which, between two black twisted columns , an icon dear to popular devotion is highlighted : it is a fresco by an unknown author, dated 1501 , depicting the Madonna and Child with Saint Euphemia . In front, on the opposite side of the nave, there is a nineteenth-century altarpiece depicting Saint Joseph ; coming from St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican , it was donated to the Sanctuary in 1963 by Pope John XXIII . The left wall also houses an eighteenth-century wooden organ.
In the presbytery there is a refined marble high altar (18th century), surmounted by a small temple, also in marble, which contains a group of wooden statues depicting the Coronation of the Virgin , a work from 1896 . The small temple serves as the last station of the Rosary on the route that winds along the climb with the chapels of the Sacred Mount.
Behind the main altar, a niche with a starry vault houses a mannequin depicting the Madonna.
At the end of the nave, the arm on the right leads to the Sacristy (built in 1710 ); the one on the left leads to the Chapel of the Madonna del Soccorso, built in 1878 and richly decorated: it houses the highly venerated statue of the Blessed Virgin to whom the sanctuary is named. This is a work probably dating back to the beginning of the 14th century, perhaps coming from a pre-existing place of worship. It cannot be ruled out that the statue is a reworking of a primitive sculpture depicting the Roman goddess Ceres . There exists, expressed according to a recurring narrative structure, a legendary reconstruction of the discovery of the statue which would have given rise to the special veneration of the statue: according to this tradition, the statue would have been found by a young deaf-mute who, following the discovery, he would have obtained healing.
The walls of the chapel are covered with votive offerings which testify to the special devotion existing in the area of Lake Como and beyond - the Madonna del Soccorso is venerated as the protector of the Diocese of Como .
The sanctuary also houses a painting depicting Saint Joseph with Child , a work donated by Pope John XXIII .
The chapels
The chapels of the Sacred Mountain that wind along the slopes leading to the sanctuary were built between 1635 and 1710 , thus creating a devotional path that invites meditation on the mysteries of the Rosary . There are fourteen chapels that can be found along the cobbled road that runs along the Sacro Monte: each is dedicated to one of the mysteries and is numbered according to the canonical succession of the five joyful mysteries, followed by the five painful mysteries and then by the first four glorious mysteries. The last of the glorious mysteries ( The Coronation of the Virgin ) consists of a shrine located inside the sanctuary, above the main altar. The intention of the route is to show the pilgrim the scenes of the various stations, in order to arouse their devotion together with the practice of reciting the Rosary.
The decision to build the Sacro Monte can probably be attributed to the initiative of the Franciscans and local noble families . Coats of arms of the noble families who financially contributed to the enterprise are visible on the entrance doors of some chapels.
Many aspects unite this Sacro Monte with that of Varese . The common dedication to the Rosary, the morphological similarities given by the cobbled path flanked by low walls, the analogies of the overall "urban plan", lead us to suppose that Monte di Varese was taken as a model here, even without wanting to compete with it in terms of monumentality.
The chapels have baroque architectural connotations , which are expressed in a variety of forms, including buildings with a rectangular plan and a single hall. Singular is, in some chapels, the addition of a rather large pronaos which includes the uphill path.
The decorative apparatus of the chapels, with polychrome statues, in stucco and terracotta , and frescoes on the walls, saw the commitment of significant artists of the time. The Ticino modeller Agostino Silva played the leading role in the creation of the crowd of statues (around two hundred and thirty) that populate the chapels, with figures often taken from everyday life, dressed in seventeenth-century clothes. It has been conjectured - to account for stylistic affinities - an intervention, together with Agostino, of his father Francesco , one of the leading modellers of the Sacro Monte of Varese. What is certain is the presence of Gianfrancesco, Agostino's son, acting as his father's assistant.
Among the painter's works we must remember, in addition to those of the aforementioned Carlo Gaffuri (seventh and tenth chapels) and Innocenzo Torriani (sixth chapel), the frescoes of Gian Paolo Recchi (tenth, eleventh and twelfth chapel). In the frescoes of the first chapel ( Annunciation ) and the
The devotional route winds through olive groves, in an environment of great landscape value; At every stop you can enjoy the panorama of the lake, having the Comacina Island in front of you . As in every Sacro Monte, you can see the effort to create harmony between architecture and landscape. Some civil buildings built close to the chapels, when little attention was paid to protecting the site, have altered this harmony slightly.
In recent years, a systematic plan for the restoration of the decorative apparatus of the chapels has been launched
Ossuccio is a municipality of 973 inhabitants in the Italian municipality of Tremezzina in the province of Como in Lombardy . Until 3 February 2014 it constituted an autonomous municipality .
Origins of the name
The toponym derives from the population of the Ausuciates , a pagan tribe that venerated the so-called ausucciacie as their local deities .
Physical geography
Ossuccio overlooks the so-called Zoca de l'Oli , a gulf of Lake Como so named due to the remarkable tranquility of its waters, precisely "smooth as oil" . This is an area that enjoys a climate so mild as to favor the flowering of Mediterranean essences. The same gulf is also known by the expression "Gulf of Diana", coined by Cardinal Angelo Maria Durini.
History
Ossuccio is an ancient place whose history merges with that of the Comacina Island . Certainly inhabited since the Bronze Age , and a place of transit for the Alpine passes ( Septimer in Val Bregaglia and Spluga ) since even more remote times, it has an Iron Age necropolis with tombs dating back to the 3rd century BC, from the that is, insubric, found in 1907. Roman sources attest that at that time Ossuccio belonged to the powerful Celtic clan of the Auxucii (pronounced: ossuci), federated to the Insubres , mentioned in a Roman tombstone from the 2nd century BC preserved in the church of SS. Agata and Sisinio. The etymology of Ossuccio derives precisely from this ancient tribe
Subsequent to the Roman conquest (196 BC), it became a pagus inscribed as Ausucium , according to the Latin transliteration, and the inhabitants Ausuciates . Confirmation of this is found in an inscription from the 2nd-3rd century found in the church of Saints Sisinnio and Agata.
The Comacina island , home to an important parish church during the first centuries of Christianity , was fortified by the Byzantines , subsequently defeated by the Lombards of Autari (588) who had the privilege of assigning the name to the town. In the following centuries, the fact that it became the safest refuge of kings and dukes with their courts and treasures earned it the nickname of Chrysopolis , city of gold.
During the ten-year war he sided with Milan but contributed with his fleet to the defeat of the city, which in 1169 took its revenge, violently occupying the island and forcing the inhabitants to disperse on the facing coasts: the plebeian church was rebuilt in the Balbiano area ( since then renamed "Isola"), while the inhabitants moved to Varenna , which thus became known as Insula Nova .
The name of Ossuccio is often mentioned in the almost constant wars between Guelphs and Ghibellines , between Como and Milan, between the Municipalities and the Empire which tore apart almost all of northern Italy between the 12th and 15th centuries. In addition to the occupation of the Comacina Island by the Milanese mentioned above, in 1348 the entire lake territory was plagued by the Black Death (described by Boccaccio and Petrarca ) and the historian Cesare Cantù reports that in Ossuccio, out of 50 families (then they called fires ) only 5 survived. In 1416, Lotario Rusca , lord of Como, attacked the village of Ossuccio which sided with Milan and set it on fire. The domination of the Duchy of Milan followed first under the Viscontis and then the Sforzas; then, in 1559 , all of western Lombardy fell under Spanish rule, remaining there until 1714 , when it passed to the Austrian Empire . Since then Ossuccio followed the historical events of the rest of the region. Since 21 January 2014 it has been part of the new municipality, of which it is the only fraction not to have previous historical links with the other three.
Symbols
«Silver coat of arms, natural flame , placed in the navel, accompanied at the head by the writing, in black capital letters, AUSUCIUM.»
The banner was a white and red cloth.
The coat of arms and the banner of the municipality of Ossuccio were granted by decree of the President of the Republic of 2 August 1955, then modified with the Presidential Decree of 21 March 1997 with which the writing Ausacium was replaced with Ausucium , corresponding to the historical name of Ossuccio . The image of the flame recalls the historical events of the town, repeatedly destroyed by fires and looting carried out by barbarian invaders and commanders of the square of Como.
Monuments and places of interest
Religious architecture
Sanctuary of the Beata Vergine del Soccorso and Sacro Monte
Sanctuary of the Beata Vergine del Soccorso and Sacro Monte.
In 2003 the Sacro Monte of Ossuccio , together with eight other Sacred Mountains of Piedmont and Lombardy , was included in the World Heritage List by UNESCO . Located on the western side of Lake Como , the Sacro Monte of Ossuccio has considerable landscape value. The chapels representing the Mysteries of the Rosary were built between 1635 and 1710 along the ascending path that leads to the Sanctuary of the Beata Vergine del Soccorso.
Church of Santa Maria Maddalena
The Romanesque church of Santa Maria Maddalena (12th century) is famous for the singular bell tower which has a late 14th century "spire" in terracotta, in Gothic style , having the function of a belfry, built on top of the old Romanesque bell tower in stone. In turn, the spire is adorned with pinnacle elements, anthropomorphic figures and, at the top, a register of hanging arches . Attested since 1169, the church was built in the Ospedaletto area, where there was already a hospital .
The church is a single nave building, ending in a semicircular apse. Equipped with a gabled roof, the church features hanging arch decorations on all external sides.
Oratory of San Giacomo
Also known as the oratory of Saints Giacomo and Philip , the Romanesque oratory of San Giacomo, in Spurano, dates back to the 11th - 12th century. The oldest historical attestation of the existence of the religious building is constituted by a document dated 1169, when the oratory already belonged to the parish church of Isola
The foundations of the building are partly on the mainland and partly in the lake: the southern portion of the oratory is in fact set on two arches which are based on foundations located below the water level.
Externally, the building has a tripartite salient façade , in which there is a cross-shaped window and two oculus windows . The four single-lancet windows on the south side have a double splay . Above the facade stands a bell tower , built later than the date of the church. The back ends with a semicircular apse , decorated with arches marked by columns superimposed on pilasters .
Inside, with a single nave, the oratory preserves cycles of frescoes created between the 12th century and the 15th century. Among them, remains of Romanesque frescoes, depicting a Saint Christopher and some biblical scenes taken from both the New and the Old Testament . The nave has a wooden gabled roof, while the choir area has a cross vault .
Church of Saints Sisinnio and Agata
The historic center of Ossuccio hosts the church of Saints Sisinnio and Anna, created on the basis of an early Christian chapel. The church, originally in Romanesque style , was the subject of numerous renovations over the centuries.
Also known as the church of Sant'Agata , internally it preserves an altar from the 2nd century , a carved Romanesque stoup and remains of frescoes dating back to the 14th centuries and XV . One of the frescoes shows a Crucifixion in which Jesus' halo encloses a portion of the cross in which a series of crenellated towers are depicted.
Abbey of San Benedetto in Val Perlana
The ancient Romanesque church of San Benedetto al Monte Oltirone, more commonly known as the Abbey of San Benedetto , is a former Benedictine monastery located in the middle of the woods of Val Perlana , at around 800 meters above sea level .
Parish Church of Sant'Eufemia
The church of Sant'Eufemia was built in Romanesque style by refugees who escaped from the destruction of the Comacina Island in 1169 . From 1178 it officially fulfilled the functions of the mother church of the parish church of Isola . The dedication to Sant'Eufemia derives from the island basilica of the same name , from which the tombstone of Bishop Agrippino also comes . It is probable that the church is a remodeling of the church of San Salvatore, already existing at the time of the devastation and attested until at least 1195. The construction of the choir dates back to 1326 , however modified in 1874 and 1957.
Behind the church there was once the baptistery of San Giovanni Battista, later incorporated into a private home.
Inside, in addition to remains of plaster from the Romanesque period, there are a holy water font from the Renaissance period and a crucifix from the 16th century. The side chapels, among which the one dedicated to Saint Charles Borromeo stands out , were decorated in the 17th century .
Military architecture
Torre del Soccorso, built with garrison functions and, if necessary, blocking the passage.
Civil architecture
Villa del Balbiano
Villa Leoni (1938-1944), designed in rationalist style by Pietro Lingeri , who to respect the autarchic measures imposed by the fascist regime had to resort to the use of local materials such as Musso stone , Moltrasio stone , and stones from Valmalenco .
Villa Della Torre (17th century)
Villa Saibene, in baroque style