Saint Anastasia church, Neoclassical church in Villasanta, Italy.
Saint Anastasia is a Neoclassical church in the centre of La Santa, a hamlet of Villasanta. Its 1936 facade has five portals and a salient profile; the interior is a Latin cross with three naves, a dome over the crossing and a 77-metre bell tower built in 1938.
A church has stood here since 768, when a small rectangular building with a semicircular apse rose along the main road. It gained a bell tower in the Middle Ages and was lengthened to about 20 metres in the 16th century; on 28 June 1578 Carlo Borromeo made it a parish seat. A larger Baroque church with a single nave was built between 1768 and 1796 and demolished in 1801, and the present building was enlarged in Neoclassical forms by Ugo Zanchetta between 1936 and 1938.
The church is the seat of the parish of the same name in the Archdiocese of Milan, in the pastoral zone V of Monza, following the Roman rite. Since 1933 it has held the bones of Saint Mark the soldier, given by Cardinal Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster; they lie in a silver urn beneath a wax statue in the right nave. In the left nave is a 16th-century fresco of the Madonna della Rosa from the older church.
The church is centrally located on the town square, roughly 20 kilometers northeast of Milan and easily accessible on foot. Visitors should be aware that regular services take place and respectful behavior is expected.
The church holds the bones of Saint Mark the Soldier, donated to the parish in 1933 by Cardinal Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster, Archbishop of Milan. They rest in a silver urn in the right nave, covered by a wax statue. The bell tower, 77 metres tall, is the eighth highest in the Archdiocese of Milan.
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