Castel S. Pietro

As already briefly mentioned in the page of Presentation and historical notes, our Municipality owes its name to the castle (Castellum Sancti Petri) which was erected around 1100 AD and which was destroyed in the early 1500 AD during the war between the Confederates and Milan. This castle was built over the river Breggia. In the immediate vicinity of the castle walls, in 1343 a church was built, the current Church of San Pietro (more known as “Red Church”). This church, with its mural paintings, stands among protected national goods.

The Red Church is not the only religious building on our territory. The Parish Church (Church of St Eusebius) for example, with its immense artistic heritage, is one of the most beautiful churches in our region and a living testimony of that emigration of local artists (the Bernasconi, the Carabelli, the Fontana, the Magni, the Pozzi and others) that around 1600 AD emigrated abroad in search of fortune, especially in Italy and Germany. When they returned home, often during the winter season, they devoted themselves passionately and came to the decoration of the interior of the church. An artistic heritage of undoubted value.

But all our municipal territory, from the village center, to the individual fractions and also the individual villages of the right bank of the Valle di Muggio, is rich in churches, oratorios and chapels. Places of worship that make the idea of how much faith was an important and well rooted component in the population. The works we see today and admire in these places, are alive testimony to our generation and future ones.

But Castel San Pietro and its splendid and varied territory, extending from the Parco delle Gole della Breggia to the summit of Monte Generoso, offers the visitor an innumerable amount of itineraries and cultural/paesaggistiche walks outside the places of worship. Every...