Madonna di Campagna, Renaissance church in Pallanza, Verbania, Italy
Madonna di Campagna is a Renaissance church in Pallanza, Verbania, built from 1519 to 1527 to a design by Giovanni Beretta da Brissago, replacing a Romanesque predecessor of which only the bell tower, probably from 1075, survives. Its interior has three naves and an octagonal drum with a loggia; the dome keeps mid-16th-century frescoes of Gaudenzian influence, while Carlo Urbino and Aurelio Luini painted the pendentives, lunettes and three apses from 1575.
A 13th-century chapel called Santa Maria de Agro, holding a fresco of the Madonna del Latte that drew pilgrims, stood here near the river San Bernardino. In the 16th century the people of Suna rebuilt it as a sanctuary under architect Giovanni Beretta da Brissago; work began in 1519 and ended in 1527, though the bishop's permit to demolish the old church dates from 1525. Only the bell tower, probably from 1075, was kept. It was consecrated in 1547.
The name comes from the rural site, once an isolated spot near the San Bernardino river. The Chapel of the Madonna delle Grazie holds a 15th-century fresco, decorated with stuccoes and paintings by Camillo Procaccini made between 1594 and 1596. The church was long shared by the parishes of Suna and Villa di Pallanza, an arrangement that lasted until 1822.
The church stands in the Pallanza district of Verbania, in an area that was open countryside when it was built and became industrial from the 1930s, with the complex later known as Rhodiatoce. The San Bernardino river once ran much closer, forming a wide bend near the building. The apse bears a stone recording the start of works.
The wooden choir in the central apse was carved by Giovanni Andrea Merzagora of Vigezzo between 1580 and 1582; he also made the pulpit and the wooden ciborium of the baptismal font around 1584. Above the main entrance stands Alessandro Mentasti's organ of 1892, restored by Mascioni in 1990.
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