Abbazia dell'Acquafredda

On the wooded slopes above Ossuccio, the Abbazia dell'Acquafredda preserves nearly nine centuries of history: a twelfth-century Cistercian foundation, rebuilt in Baroque style and frescoed by the Fiamminghino.

Why it matters

The abbey is the principal medieval monument of the hills behind Ossuccio and a rare Cistercian foundation on Lake Como. Its church, dedicated to Santa Maria dell'Uliveto, layers the periods visibly: a Romanesque apse and the base of the medieval bell tower survive from the original complex, while the present interior is an accomplished example of local Baroque, its walls and vaults painted in 1621 with a cycle attributed to Giovanni Mauro della Rovere, the Milanese painter known as il Fiamminghino, including thirteen scenes from the life of Saint Bernard, the Cistercians' founding abbot. Its Baroque cycle forms part of the area's seventeenth-century artistic heritage.

What to notice

The building preserves several historical layers. The oldest surviving fabric is at the east end — the Romanesque apse and the stump of the original bell tower — alongside the medieval sepulchre of Saint Agrippino, the relic of the abbey's early centuries. The entrance to the monastery is marked by a monumental stone portal carved with the crossed arms of the Capuchin cross, a sign of the religious community that later occupied the complex. The single-naved church contains Baroque stuccoes, an Annunciation altarpiece and a Saint Bernard cycle inscribed with the date 1621. The abbey's terraced position overlooks the lake and the northern mountain landscape. The water source from which "Acquafredda" — cold water — takes its name still marks the grounds.

Context and history

The monastery took shape in the mid-twelfth century, founded by Cistercian monks — sources credit a monk named Enrico arriving from the abbey of Morimondo, with the foundation and the building of the church placed between the 1140s and the end of the century, and imperial privileges later confirmed its holdings. Its fortunes collapsed violently in 1527, when the monastery — by then a refuge for brigands — was besieged and put to the fire: local tradition names Count Ascanio Bergamino as the attacker, while other accounts give the order to the governor of Como. Afterwards the buildings served at times as a refuge. The medieval monastery was abandoned in the course of the sixteenth century, and the church was rebuilt in Baroque form, frescoed in 1621 and reshaped over the following century. A Capuchin presence followed, as the portal's symbolism records. The complex stands on the hillside above Ossuccio, within today's Tremezzina.