Chiesa di San Francesco d'Assisi

Since 1967 the parish life of Blevio has centred on this twentieth-century church in the village core, designed by architect Carlo Lucini and inaugurated by the Bishop of Como. Its brick exterior and green dome shelter early paintings transferred from the older church by the harbour, and a presbytery reworked by sculptor Eli Riva.

Why it matters

Every village on Lake Como has one building that tells the story of its most recent century, and in Blevio that building is the parish church of San Francesco d'Assisi. Consecrated to use in December 1967 after the centuries-old church by the harbour proved inadequate, it marks the moment when the village rebuilt its religious heart around the modern centre rather than the waterfront. Yet the new church is not a break with the past: three significant older paintings were moved here from the former parish church, and in 1988 one of Lombardy's best-known sculptors reshaped its presbytery. It became the parish church of the community while preserving works transferred from the earlier church.

What to notice

The exterior is deliberately sober: exposed brickwork, a compact form set into the village fabric, and a green polygonal dome that makes the building identifiable from the road above the lake. The main facade runs parallel to the municipal road, with the entrance reached across a covered area, as recorded in the national catalogue of Catholic places of worship.

Inside, the concentration of historic painting is the surprise. A canvas attributed to Panfilo Nuvolone depicts Mary with Elizabeth; a Deposition from the Cross comes from the workshop circle of Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli, the "Morazzone", among the most forceful Lombard painters of the early seventeenth century; and a Nativity scene follows the manner of Guglielmo Caccia's school — the Piedmontese painter known as il Moncalvo, whose workshop style circulated widely across the Alpine foothills — all three transferred from the old church of Saints Gordian and Epimachus when the parish moved. The presbytery deserves equal attention: sculptor Eli Riva, whose studio worked across the Como region, created its present arrangement, blessed on 6 May 1988 by Bishop Teresio Ferraroni.

Context and history

The project was entrusted to architect Carlo Lucini, and the building rose in the town centre on a site above the lakeside road. Bishop Felice Bonomini inaugurated it on 17 December 1967, and from that moment it replaced the church of Saints Gordian and Epimachus as the parish seat of Blevio — ending more than six centuries during which the lakeside church had anchored parish life, from its late-medieval documentation to the mid-twentieth century. The choice to carry the most valued altarpieces into the new building made it the depository of the village's artistic memory. Two decades later, Eli Riva's presbytery adaptation, blessed in 1988 under Bishop Teresio Ferraroni, adjusted the interior to the liturgical practice of the post-conciliar period. The church forms part of the Parish of Saints Gordian and Epimaco within the vicariato of Bellagio e Torno.