Church of Santa Maria Immacolata (Lugano)

The Church of Santa Maria Immacolata It is a neoclassical religious building that is located in via Pietro Peri, in the historic center of Lugano Centro.

The origin of the Church is medieval: the building, some traces of which are still visible, was part of the ancient monastery called Santa Caterina ^[first] or “to see it ^[2] de supra “, which was already existing to the mid -thirteenth century ^[2] .

Originally managed by the humiliated, ^[3] In 1616 the monastery passed to the cure of Benedictine nuns. ^[4]

After being built in the years 1330-133, the church of Santa Caterina was completely redone in 1460. ^[2]

During the period of activity of the monastery, the church was divided into an internal part, reserved for cloistered nuns, and an external part, accessible by the people. ^[3]

In 1848 the suppression of the monastery took place, ^{[5] [4] [first]} which was first secularized by the canton ^[6] and then purchased by the engineer Pasquale Lucchini, ^{[5] [6] [7] [3]} who made a reconversion of the complex in a housing nucleus ^[5] .

The following year, the church of the former-Monastery was resold to the “Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception”, ^{[5] [first]} to which in 1843 the same Cantone had confiscated the church of the Immaculate Conception in the sun (already called San Geminiano ^{[8] [3]} ) for the construction of the town hall building ^{[6] [4]} . ^[8]

On commission of the aforementioned Confraternity ^[5] , in 1860 ^[9] Francesco Antonio Garlic ^[ten] (O Allio ^[5] ) reworking the old church of Santa Caterina, also incorporating some decorations of the Church of the Immaculate Conception to the Sun, ^[first] In turn destroyed in 1843 ^[6] and replaced by the town hall in 1852.

In the two-year period 1917-1918 ^[3] The current facade, the work of Bernardo Ramelli, was created. ^{[5] [first] [11] [4]}

In 1974, a part of the cloister of the old monastery was demolished. ^{[first] [4]}

Conservative restoration interventions were recorded in the 1980s and in the first fifteen of the 21st century. ^[5]

Exterior [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

A triangular pediment dominates the facade of the church, in an eclectic style. ^[twelfth]

Decorated by binged pilasters, the facade is open by a large thermal window, ending in a portal surmounted by a semi -chilling bezel.

The spa window, as well as the windows located along the side walls of the church, ^[11] It contains historical windows, made in the years 1960-1963 by the Zurich artist Willy Kaufmann. ^[13]

The bell tower, which since 1852 has hosted two bells from the demolished church of the Immaculate Conception in the sun, ^[5] It is dominated by a name bearing the abbreviation “SC”, ^[2] As evidence of the previous dedication of the place of worship in Santa Caterina ^[2] . The bell tower was already part of the old church of Santa Caterina. ^[3] The current title of the Church is instead identifiable on the facade, inside an inscription positioned between the lunette of the portal and the spa window.

Interior [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

The church has a single -nave system, with a sailing vault, ^[9] Open by two side chapels and ending in a semicircular apse ^{[11] [ten]} .

An eighteenth -century balustrade ^{[11] [14]} with marbles recovered by the old church of Santa Caterina ^[5] Introduce to the presbytery, equipped with a saving stone floor and Arzo’s brocade ^[14] .

The presbytery area is dominated by the main altar in polychrome marbles (1801 ^{[5] [11]} ), made by Arzese Nazaro Fossati ^[11] On a project by Giovanni Sartoris ^{[3] [5]} and recovered by the old church of the Immaculate Conception in the sun ^[5] . From the same church comes the wooden statue which, at the center of the same altar, depicts the Immaculate Madonna, work carved in 1709 ^{[8] [3]} from the bellagino ^[15] Andrea Albiolo ^{[8] [3]} . ^{[6] [14]}

The presbytery is also covered by a drum dome, ^[9] containing frescoed drawers a gray , al centro of which one and stoked a sunlight symboling Santo ^[16] .

On the right side of the presbytery there is one Adoration of the child with the blessed Luigi Gonzaga and the saints Caterina, Carlo and Benedetto , huge canvas painted by Isidoro Bianchi at the beginning of the 1640s, ^[17] former altarpiece of the old church of Santa Caterina ^{[3] [14]} . The wooden crucifix is ​​also seventeenth ^[16] placed near the main altar ^[11] . The painting dates back to a later time The immaculate between angels, ^[16] Made by a unknown Lombard author (perhaps Bernardino Mercoli ^[3] ) and placed on the left side of the presbytery ^[11] . More recent are the paintings located in the apse: a Pope Clement XIV (1781), by Vincenzo Milione; ^{[twelfth] [18]} a Santa Maria Maddalena in Penance (mid -eighteenth century), of the school of Giuseppe Antonio Petrini; ^{[11] [twelfth]} it’s a San Biagio di Sebaste (1860), by the local painter Giovanni Battista Sertorio ^{[19] [11] [twelfth]} .

Pietro Tamò is instead the author of the altarpieces of the side chapels, made in 1949 ^[11] and depicting, respectively, a Sacred Heart of Jesus (copy of a similar work by Corrado Mezzana) and a St. Joseph with the Child . ^[20] In the Chapel of San Giuseppe there is also another pictorial representation of Santa Caterina, built in the mid -seventeenth century by students of the school of Giacomo and Giovanni Andrea Casella. ^[twelfth] The Petrini Bottega is instead attributed a pictorial representation of San Francesco d’Assisi (mid -eighteenth century), preserved in the chapel of the Sacred Heart ^[twelfth] . ^[11]

Along the walls of the church, the fourteen stations of a via Crucis by Ernesto Pirovano (1901-1972) are also located, built in 1961 for the church of Santo Stefano in Carde and subsequently moved to the Lugano church of Santa Maria Immacolata. ^[21]

Pipe organ [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

In the counter -fabed there is the organ in Mascioni Canne opus 346 , built in 1922 ^[22] and restored in 2014. ^[5] Pneumatic-tubular transmission, has two keyboards of 58 notes each and a pedal of 27, ^[5] and has 11 registers.

• Bernhard another, Art guide of Italian Switzerland , Trelingue editions, Porza-Lugano, 1980, 266.
• Aa, etc., Art guide of Italian Switzerland , Casagrande editions, Bellinzona 2007, 306-307.
• Aa.VV., A message of light – The church of the Blessed Virgin Immaculate in Lugano , edited by Arciconfraternity of the Blessed Virgin Immaculate in Lugano, Bellinzona, Tipografia Torriani Sa, 2016.