Santuario della Madonna delle Grazie

A Franciscan sanctuary founded by Count Francesco d’Arco in 1478 stands in open country between Arco and Riva del Garda. Rebuilt on the site of its medieval predecessor in the nineteenth century, it houses a late-medieval statue of the Madonna, a polychrome-marble altar designed by Andrea Pozzo and a bronze portal by Franciscan friar-sculptor Fra’ Silvio Bottes. Its refectory hosted a three-year truce in 1508.

Why it matters

The conventual complex brings together a church, cloister, refectory and courtyards. Count Francesco d'Arco decided the building's construction in 1478, though he did not live to see it finished — his will charged his sons Andrea and Odorico with completing the work. The convent of the Reformed Friars, Franciscans, was completed in 1482 and the church ten years later. History crossed its threshold in a surprising way: on 11 June 1508 the three-year truce between Emperor Maximilian I of Habsburg, Louis XII of France and the Republic of Venice was concluded here, with the subscribing envoys hosted in the convent and led by the prince-bishop of Trento, Giorgio Neideck. Suppressed during the Napoleonic invasion, restored afterwards, damaged by the 1976 earthquake and repaired, the complex remains a working sanctuary in an unusually rural setting.

What to notice

The artistic core is the baroque high altar in polychrome marble, the work of Giacomo and Cristoforo Benedetti of Castione executed to a design by Andrea Pozzo, the celebrated Jesuit theorist of the baroque. At its summit sits the coat of arms of the counts of Arco, because the financing came from Giambattista d'Arco, canon of Salzburg, whose portrait hangs in the sacristy. In the niche above the altar is the Madonna venerated under the title of the Grazie: a late-medieval statue attributed to sculptors of the Veronese school, which villagers of Varignano carried to safety when Napoleonic requisitions dispersed the friars. Fra’ Silvio Bottes, a friar who lived in the convent, made the bronze entrance portal and the terracotta facade panels, as well as the statue of Saint Francis in the square and Arco’s war memorial in Piazza Segantini. Below the church lies the cloister, one floor lower, with the tombstones of Susanna Collalto, mother of Nicolò, and Barbara Martinengo, wife of Andrea d'Arco, both likely moved from the earlier church. Late nineteenth-century murals recount the life of the Madonna, and wooden choir stalls remain behind two low doors beside the main altar.

Context and history

The sanctuary grew on land that belonged to the counts, and the d'Arco patronage is written across it: Francesco's 1478 decision, the sons' completion of the work, the burial privilege in the old church, and the Salzburg canon who paid for the eighteenth-century altar. The Napoleonic era brought requisition and dispersal; the nineteenth century brought a decisive rebuilding: the ancient church was demolished and the present one raised on the same ground between the 1850s and 1860s, its area lifted by almost three metres against the floods of the torrent Bordellino — the municipality dates the construction to 1857 from a project by the Trento architect Antonio Conci, and a solemn re-consecration followed in 1869. Painters of the late nineteenth century, then Pino Casarini around 1938, added the mural decoration. The earthquake of 1976 caused serious damage; restoration began the following year and the belfry received its copper spire in 1979.