Santuario di Santa Rita da Cascia

Above the San Maurizio district of Brunate stands a small stone oratory conceived in 1940, built by donated labour and materials, and dedicated to Santa Rita da Cascia in memory of alpine soldiers who died in war. The Diocese of Como has counted it among its official diocesan sanctuaries since 1944.

Why it matters

The Sanctuary of Santa Rita da Cascia is remarkable precisely because of its smallness and the story compressed into it. It grew from one parish priest's impulse during the dark spring of 1940, when don Giuseppe Grassi, attending the blessing of a new wing of the Club alpino operaio hut above Brunate, offered parish land and a nearby quarry of stone so that a chapel could rise in honour of Santa Rita and in memory of the alpine troops lost to the war. In barely a year the chapel was standing; in 1944 the Bishop of Como, Alessandro Macchi, elevated it to a sanctuary. The Diocese of Como has listed it among its official sanctuaries since 1944.

What to notice

The building is deliberately simple, its stone drawn from the nearby quarry that don Grassi placed at the project's disposal, and its scale closer to a mountain oratory than to a monumental church. Carved wooden statues from Val Gardena on the two piers of the triumphal arch portray Santa Rita and the Madonna Assunta. Architect Piero Clerici donated the design, and the Clerici e Seregni firm of Como carried out the construction. The chapel is set into the hillside above the district's church, oriented toward the Triangolo Lariano ridge.

Context and history

The sanctuary's documented history is compact and precise. The idea took shape in 1940; support came from friends of the parish, users of the alpine workers' hut, local property owners and the hut's president Carlo Mauri. The first stone was laid on 15 June 1941 in the presence of Bishop Macchi. The building was blessed on 21 September 1941 while still unfinished, and consecrated the following 25 May. On 22 May 1944 the bishop raised it to the rank of sanctuary, dedicated to Santa Rita da Cascia in memory of the fallen alpini. After the war the sanctuary remained tied to Brunate's mountain community: restorations carried out by the town's ANA — the national alpine association's local group — were inaugurated on 25 June 1988 by Bishop Teresio Ferraroni together with the parish priest don Giorgio Ratti. Popular accounts sometimes call it the smallest sanctuary in Italy or Europe, a ranking the diocesan source presents as a local tradition rather than a measured fact.