Tspecific typology: church Structural configuration: The complex of the church of S. Maria is composed of the church, with a single nave with presbytery and rectangular side chapels and the bell tower, located between the church and the parish house. On the left side of the facade there is an arch that connects the church with the neighboring house and on the right side of the church is the parish house. The buildings are made up of stone masonry, which in the case of the bell tower is exposed and in the case of the church it is exposed only on the north side, while on the other free sides it is plastered and painted.
Construction period: 1708
Author: Tarilli Giovan Battista, church, first and second left bay, paintings; Tarilli Giovanni Domenico, church, first and second left bay, paintings; Carloni Carlo Innocenzo, church, main façade, project / church, frescoes; Carloni Diego Francesco, church, main elevation, project / church, stucco / church, statues; Molciani Giovanni Battista, church, presbytery, altar frontal; Garvo Allio Tommaso, church, main altar, small temple; Verzetti Pietro, church, main façade, fresco; De Angeli Gaspare, church, counter-façade, stoup The church, with a single nave, has two side chapels on each side, the chapels of the Baptistery and the Crucifix on the left, that of Santa Monica and the chapel known as "dei Genovesi" on the right. The starting point for the eighteenth-century redevelopment was the bequest of Giovan Battista Carloni, father of Diego and Carlo Innocenzo, who provided 900 imperial lire for the renovation of the choir. From the codicil, affixed to the will of 26 February 1718, it is clear that the legacy was fulfilled while Giovanni Battista was still alive in 1710. From 1711 Diego Carloni was working in the church for the stucco decorations, from 1724 for the frescoes, Charles Innocent. The work of the two brothers continued, with long interruptions, for several decades: if for Diego the last known date is 1741, when the statues of the saints Nazaro and Celso, patron saints of Scaria, were placed on the elegantly modulated façade, we know that Carlo Innocenzo completed the side frescoes of the presbytery in 1751 and, in the winter of 1751-52, executed the two altarpieces of the Crucifix with Saints Rocco and Sebastiano and of the Madonna and Child and Saint Monica for the eponymous chapels. The completion of the works perhaps took place after Diego's death in 1750, as the date 1753 marked on the floor seems to suggest. The scarcity of archival documentation is explained by the fact that the paintings, frescoes and stuccos were mostly offered by the Carloni brothers as a sign of attachment to the church of their native town, according to a custom of the artistic workers of Como, Vallintelvesi and Ticino, of whom we find other examples in Rovio, in the parish church of Santi Vitale e Agata and in the church of Santa Maria, for which several members of the Carloni di Rovio family of the Genoese and Turin branch were active, and in the splendid decoration of the vault of the church of San Martino in Castello di Valsolda, offered by Paolo Pagani in 1697. Despite the long time span of the works, interrupted by the frequent commitments of Diego and Carlo Innocenzo Carloni on large transalpine and northern Italian construction sites which kept them far from their native land, the whole is perfectly unitary. The harmonious fusion between architecture, painting and plastic stucco apparatus makes the complex an absolutely typical example of the baroque ideal of Gesamtkunstwerk. Despite its predominantly Carlonian imprint, the interior of the church preserves evidence of the work of other Intelvese masters.
Next to the entrance, the marble basin of blessed water with a figure of a seated angel was created and offered, as the inscription indicates, by Giovan Gaspare De Angelis in 1607. The "Genoese chapel" received a bequest in 1635 also by the sculptor Giovan Gaspare De Angelis, long active in Genoa: in fact, the altarpiece of the Madonna and saints attributed to Giovanni Carloni is from the Genoese school. The main altar, surmounted by a marble temple by Antonio Silva di Lanzo (1709-1710), contains a late seventeenth-century frontal in scagliola attributed to Giovan Battista Molciani. Among the carvings of the wooden pulpit (1781) appears the corn cob (in dialect carlòn), the "speaking" coat of arms of the Carloni of Scaria. Historical news While the parish church of Saints Nazaro and Celso, isolated from the town, is an important testimony to the history and art of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Vallintelves, the parish church of Santa Maria, located in the heart of the town, is linked to the family epic of the Carloni and the great artistic flowering of Vallintelvese in the Baroque and Rococo ages.
Of fifteenth-century origin, its original appearance, before the Baroque transformations, is handed down to us by the description contained in the documents of the pastoral visit of Bishop Felicino Ninguarda in 1593, but only a few fragments of frescoes survive today from this older phase. The current baroque face is the result of the commitment, achieved over more than fifty years, of various members of the Carloni family supported by other local artistic workers. Current use: entire property: church Historical use: entire property: church Legal status: ownership Catholic religious body.
WATCH THE VIDEO MADE BY TV2000 – “Borghi d'Italia”
By Anna Pernice – Travel Fashion Tips: What to do in autumn in Valle Intelvi: the Lombardy valley between two lakes
By Giada Luni – bebeez : Alta Valle Intelvi, bridge between two cultures. The historic holiday of the Milanese starts again from culture and sport
By Simona Castelli – ARTEVALLEINTELVI: The Paradise
By Simona Castelli – ARTEVALLEINTELVI: The faces of motherhood (min. 9:54)