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Recorded in documents as early as 929 as the property of the abbey of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro in Pavia, the church, surrounded by park-like grounds, is rectangularly planned with a choir and was remodelled during the Baroque period. A bell tower with mullioned windows and a hipped roof stands to the north of the choir. Renovation work was carried out in 1931, 1969, 1997 and 2000. The construction phases can be seen in the new plaster on the western façade. According to these, the first church seems to have been a low, narrow building; the late medieval phase is thought to have brought with it an extension to the south and general elevation, giving the church its current size; the early 17th-century transformation led primarily to the raising of the walls. Its windows are Diocletian in type. On the left side of the portal: a figure of Saint Christopher, completely retouched, in place of another fresco and painted ashlars of particular interest, removed at the beginning of the 19th century. In the rectangular entrance: a door from 1777. The church has a single nave with three barrel-vaulted spans with transverse arches and lateral lunette arches. On the vaults: three frescoes framed by stucco, from the late 18th century. In 1617, a loggia with columns was built into the north wall; this must once have been the window of the chapel of the brotherhood, also located along the north side. A cross vaulted choir with rich stucco decorations of putti acting as caryatids, festoons, heads of putti and putti sitting on the wide cornice. Altar with altarpiece depicting the Assumption, surrounded by an eye-catching stucco frame and a statue of the Madonna, all datable to the second half of the 17th century. In the ribs of the vault: musician angels and dove of the Holy Spirit in the centre. Marble altar stone, created by Giuseppe Giudici from Viggiù in 1793. The current altar features carefully executed inlays, dating from the 18th century. On the sides of the triumphal arch: stucco altars from the late 18th century. Late Gothic frescoes. The north wall of the nave is home to a depiction of the Last Supper: in a work that dates from the mid-15th century, Christ and the Apostles sit in tympanum-backed stalls. On the right: the martyrdom of Saint Apollonia, a fresco from the first half of the 16th century. On the south wall: a Crucifixion with saints Catherine and Anthony the Hermit and two other unidentifiable saints on the left; dating from the mid-15th century. Below: another unidentifiable saint alongside saints Sebastian, Roch, John the Baptist, the enthroned Madonna and Veronica, from the late 15th century, with an undoubtedly contemporary palmette frieze frame. On the north wall of the choir: fragments of the frescoed figure of the Virgin of Mercy and below: Adoration of the Magi, a work dating from the second half of the 15th century by a master influenced by Northern European art. Polygonal pulpit with statues from the first half of the 17th century. The church’s treasury contains two sun-shaped monstrances from the second-half of the 18th century and a chalice dating from 1531. |