Sorico Part 1 - a Walking Tour in the Village We Start the Tour at the Boundary with Gera Lario at Via Regina (See Map)
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2018 –1E Text and photos Ruud and Ina Metselaar www.comomeerinfo.nl Sorico Part 1 - A walking tour in the village We start the tour at the boundary with Gera Lario at Via Regina (see map). After a few steps we see at the left-hand side the remains of villa Giulini. The villa was built in the 18th century, but was damaged seriously by a flood and has never been repaired. Villa Giulini At the start of the 18th century the abbot Giulini built a beautiful villa with splendid gardens in Sorico. The gardens covered seven terraces, stepwise sloping up, with large, double ponds with several kinds of fish, in particular trout. According to contemporaries it was marvellous to see water from different brooks come down with high speed to the point where they united. The same forces of water, however, strengthened by abundant rains, turned against the owner in the year 1750 breaking through the terrace walls, flooding the house and gardens, ruining everything. Stones, ponds and sand were swept away by the water. Although somewhat restored later on, the gardens never returned to their former beauty. The family, shocked by the unexpected events, gave up the villa and moved to Gravedona. The remains of the villa show large cracks in the walls and nothing is done to preserve it. It should be remarked that living in the villa was in fact only reasonably possible during winter time because the swamps of the rivers Adda and Mera made the surrounding a very unhealthy place Villa Giulini Villa Rotonda Next, a few hundred metres further on at the right-hand side, bordering the supermarket, there is an octagonal tower that, in spite of its shape is known as villa Rotonda. Originally a church, it is now used as a private house. 1 Villa Rotonda For many years the building looked like a tower that was used as a hay barn, but after a thorough restauration it has now been transformed into a residential building. The site is of historical interest. In 1193 Litolfo di Soave left money to build a so-called ‘xenodochio’ in Sorico i.e. a resting place for pilgrims on their heavy route from the northern countries to holy places in Italy. Sorico was situated along the Via Regina, the main road to the Spluga pass, the connection between the regions north and south of the Alps. At the side of the hospice a church was built, dedicated to saint Bartolomeo. Some documents show that around 1700 little was left of the hospice. In 1699 bishop Bonesana writes: “There is a chapel too, where first the hospital of S. Bartolomeo was and now the Madonna del Fiume (the Madonna of the river) because it is next to a river. Several years ago the construction of a church was started, but after the death of the donors, due to lack of money, this was never finished”. In 1712 bishop Olgiati writes; “The church of the Beate Vergine Immacolata, named Del Fiume, at first the church of a hospital named after Saint Bartolomeo, is now destroyed, but was restored and decorated by Faustino Giulini”. On a map of 1722 one sees that the river, that now flows to the lake near the church of S. Stefano, at that time crossed the village at the place of the present supermarket. The church mentioned in the two papers is Villa Rotonda. It was built in two stages: the first started at the end of 1600, but ended because of a lack of money, the second started in the beginning of 1700, financed by Faustino Giulini. At his death in 1719 he left enough money to finish the construction as is shown on the 1722 map. The Giulini family Above we mentioned the name Giulini as owners of the villa at the opposite side of the street. The Giulinis were an important family originating in the village of Giulini, near Mezzagra, around 1250. At the end of 1500 Giovanni Antonio Giulini moved from Gera to Sorico, where the family has its own tomb in the church of S. Stefano. His son Giorgio moved in 1636 after the plundering by the French troops from Sorico to Como, but stayed regularly in Sorico. His sons Giuseppe and Faustino moved to Milan after the death of their father. The first became a well- known lawyer, the other lector in anatomy and surgery at the University of Pavia. Giuseppe had four sons, two of them, Giorgio and Faustino, who became very rich. This Giorgio (1661-1727), began the construction of Villa Giulini. His son, abbot Giovanni (1692-1760) finished the work. When the abbot became sickly in 1742 and feared the malaria in Sorico, he moved to Gravedona, using the villa only for special occasions. In 1750 the villa was destroyed by the flood. That the climate of Sorico at the lake was unhealthy is also evident from the fact that only 8 families lived there. The majority of the about 600 inhabitants of Sorico lived in the mountain villages, Albonico with 25% of the inhabitants being the most important nucleus. Faustino (1667-1719) left money for the building of the church Madonna del Fiume, intended as a chapel for the village. Giorgio left money not only for the villa but also to restore the church of S. Stefano in the year 1703. Because of this gift the two brothers received in 1704 from pope Clemens XI the ‘gius patronato’, that is the privilege to nominate the archpriest, a privilege the family retained until 1812, when it moved to the bishop of Como. When Faustino died in 1719 he was buried in Pavia, but according to his will his embalmed heart was transferred to Sorico, to the church of the Beate Vergine. Only in recent years the box with his heart was found by chance under the altar of the Virgin in the S. Stefano. In the Napoleonic time the church was sold, and changed into a residential house. After a fire in 1898 it served for some time as a hay barn before it was reconstructed to its present form as residential house. 2 Continuing the road we arrive at the village square, the piazza Batttisti. Here we find the post office, a pharmacy and the town hall. There is little left to remind us of the stirring past of the village that sometimes was part of the region of Como and sometimes was occupied by Como’s enemy, the Grigioni (people from the Swiss region Graubünden). In 1515 the village was first plundered and ransacked by the French troops, next by the Grigioni and finally by the Spanish soldiers. On the left there is the parish church of S. Stefano, built in 1447 at the site where, according to old documents, there was a Roman temple. Until 1444 the baptistery was in Olonio, in the present Pian di Spagna, but regular floods of the river Adda forced the inhabitants to leave the plain. With financial aid of the duke of Milan, Philips Maria Visconti, a new baptistery was built next to the imposing bell tower. Already in the year 1000 Sorico had joined an alliance named the Tre Pievi (Three Parishes) between Dongo and Gravedona (also covering Domaso), but only from 1444 on it was a parish on its own. At the end of the 17th century the church needed a thorough restauration and a great donation by Giorgio Giuliani made this possible in 1703. At the top of the hill S. Giorgio, behind the church, there was once a fortification. One can reach this place by taking the via Roma (the street left at the entrance of the square), but there are only a few remains of walls to be seen. The church of S. Stefano Originally founded in Roman times, as is evident from the high bell tower, it received the title of parish church in 1444 when the region of Olonio became inhabitable because of the regular floods. The present form dates from the 18th century, although some of the older parts are still visible, as for instance the porch in white marble and the rose window. Entering the church one immediately notes the 16th century tryptich on the main altar. It shows the Madonna with child flanked by S. Stefano and S. Vincenzo. Hidden behind the main altar at the back wall there is a fresco of the Crucifixion made by Giorgio Scotti in 1473. The upper part however, was removed when a window was made at this place. On the right hand side of the presbytery there is a painting of S. Orsola, from the 17th century. On the left hand side a painting of S. Gregory the Great liberating souls from purgatory, from the same century. To the right of the presbytery there is the chapel of the Rosary with fragments of frescoes from the original church, which were hidden behind the stucco. The right wall of the chapel shows a fresco of the beginning of the 15th century with the saints Nicolas from Tolentino and Caterina from Alessandria. The first chapel at the right, the baptistery, has a fresco of the Baptism of Christ, made by Tagliaferri in the 19th century. The second chapel at the right contains a polychromic wooden statue of S. Rocco (16th century) with his pilgrim’s staff and dog. Left: Bell tower of the church of S. Stefano Right: La Torre 3 La Torre and above the church of Saint Miro From the square we follow the state road and take the path on the left-hand side, after the bridge, following the sign S.