Tirano

A truly beautiful hike that starts in Tirano, climbs up to Roncaiola, descends back to Tirano, then ascends again to the small church of Santa Perpetua before finally descending to Madonna di Tirano.

Roncaiola

Between the late 19th and early 20th century, the hamlet of Roncaiola had around 200–300 inhabitants.

Its origins, however, are much older. The name derives from the effort made by the earliest settlers to wrest cultivable land from the rocky mountainside. In the Middle Ages, the act of clearing shrubs, breaking up the soil and putting previously unusable land under cultivation was called runcare or roncare. Land reclaimed in this way was known as ronco, roncaglia or roncaiola.

By the end of the 17th century, the present-day church dedicated to Saint Stephen and Saint Lucy had already been built. It is likely that the characteristic bell tower was added later, in the 18th century. One of the two bells dates to 1759 and is attributed to the bell-founder Giovan Battista Soletti of Brescia. The second bell, whose founder is unknown, dates back to 1684 and may have been acquired from another church or recast; this remains a matter of hypothesis.

The construction of the church and bell tower therefore postdates the casting of the latter bell.

In 1688, during a pastoral visit, Carlo Ciceri, Bishop of Como from 1680 to 1694, proposed the construction of a church to serve the inhabitants of the scattered hillside hamlets of Roncaiola, Bedolle and Nasen, which together numbered no more than 60 people at the time:

“[…] Let an oratory be built in the mountain hamlet of Roncaiola, so that Mass may be celebrated there and the Holy Sacraments administered.”

Construction began in 1690, supported by numerous donations from local residents as well as from wealthy benefactors, such as Stefano Salis, who in 1725 endowed the beneficio cappellania, enabling a priest to celebrate Mass in this isolated community. The residents faced considerable difficulty in reaching Tirano to attend religious services, as they had to follow the steep and treacherous mule track already described at the time as “arduous and disastrous”.

The present road was built only after the Second World War and was originally unpaved and without guardrails.

Among the religious figures associated with Roncaiola, even before it became a parish, particular mention should be made of Count Don Giuseppe Salis, brother of Count Ulisse. Very little is known about him, as he lived in deep humility and was remembered as a zealous and charitable priest.

Affiliated with the parish of San Martino in Tirano, he chose Roncaiola as his primary field of pastoral work. He relinquished his post on 1 January 1906. His successor, Don Egidio Pedrotti, a well-known historian, wrote that on that date “[…] the eighty-year-old Count Don Giuseppe Salis entrusted to me the care of the chaplaincy of Roncaiola”.

Don Lino Varischetti, in his work Tirano, collected several testimonies from Salis’s successors that bear witness to the noble figure of a priest who “[…] to the nobility of his origins had added the highest nobility of a priesthood devoted entirely to the glory of God and the good of his neighbour”.

He won the affection and gratitude of everyone in Roncaiola for his selfless charity and reliability. He cared not only for the spiritual life of this small community, but also for the serious material needs of families living in extremely poor conditions. One winter evening, on Christmas Eve, he was called to attend a sick woman and found her lying on straw with a high fever. Without hesitation, he returned home, carried his own bed on his shoulders to her house, and then slept himself on the floor, covering up with a burial cloth to protect himself from the cold.

He also ensured that children in Roncaiola had the opportunity to learn to read and write, personally funding the construction of the schoolroom that still exists today and hiring teachers whose only qualification was having completed primary school. It is still remembered that the first handkerchiefs ever seen in Roncaiola arrived in the priest’s satchel, one for each schoolchild, accompanied by an explanation of how to use them.

In 1935, Countess Celestina Rolle, widow of Bernardo, son of the statesman and writer Luigi Torelli, left a bequest to the Church so that Roncaiola might become a parish. She donated a house for the parish priest and an income to support him in this poor and remote location.

In 1937, the Church of Saint Stephen and Saint Lucy officially became a parish, separating from the Collegiate Church of San Martino in Tirano. Its first parish priest was the distinguished Don Tarcisio Salice.

Madonna di Tirano

According to Catholic tradition, on 29 September 1504 the Virgin Mary appeared in an orchard in Tirano to Mario Omodei, asking him to build a church in her honour on that spot. Omodei thus became the first devoted promoter of the sanctuary’s construction.

Work began on 25 March 1505, the Feast of the Annunciation, the same day the Bishop of Como granted permission for the building. The exterior structure was completed in 1513, while the church was consecrated on 14 May 1528 by Bishop Cesare Trivulzio, once the interior decoration had been completed.

Between 1580 and 1587, the dome and tiburio were built under the direction of the Campione master builder Pompeo Bianchi, who had previously worked as an engineer on the Cathedral of Como. At the end of the works, a statue of Saint Michael the Archangel by Francesco Guicciardi was placed atop the dome.

Pope Pius XII proclaimed Our Lady of Tirano the patron saint of Valtellina. In 1927, the sanctuary was elevated to the rank of Minor Basilica of the Holy Roman Church, and on 6 July 2003 Bishop Alessandro Maggiolini raised it to the status of diocesan sanctuary.

The Baroque style, elegance and richness of the stucco work, sculptures and frescoes make the sanctuary one of the three most beautiful churches in Lombardy, together with Milan Cathedral and the Certosa of Pavia.

Inspired by Renaissance ideals of balance and harmony, the sanctuary was most likely designed by Tommaso Rodari, architect of the Cathedral of Como. Tuscan, Lombard and even Venetian elements — such as the light, airy façade — come together here. His brother Giacomo Rodari was responsible for the sculptural decoration of the windows and side portals, completed around 1534, while the main portal was finished by Alessandro della Scala of Carona, who also sculpted the statue of Saint John adorning the baptismal font inside the church.

The interior is divided into three naves, the central one measuring 20 metres in length and 14 metres in width. What immediately strikes visitors is the extraordinary abundance of stucco, paintings and decorative elements covering almost every available surface — a hallmark of Lombard Renaissance mastery.

Among the many artworks, the monumental organ built between 1608 and 1617 by Giuseppe Bulgarini of Brescia deserves special mention. It rests on eight large columns of red marble and was once concealed during Holy Week by a painted canvas depicting the Coronation of the Virgin, created in 1650 by Carlo Marni.

The high altar, an outstanding Baroque work in inlaid marble dating from 1748, harmonises with the wooden choir stalls of the apse (1749). The altarpiece depicts the miracle that led to the construction of the sanctuary. In the first bay on the left is the Chapel of the Madonna, housing a Marian statue by the Del Maino brothers, set within a marble altar from the early 19th century. Behind it, a darkened niche preserves a sculptural group representing the apparition of the Virgin.

The bell tower, begun in 1578 and completed in 1641 to a design by Pietro Marni of Bormio, also deserves attention. Originally, coats of arms of the Three Leagues were painted on its eastern side by Cipriano Valorsa. The bells and clock were modified over the centuries, reflecting the long and layered history of this extraordinary sanctuary.