Medieval Feel

THE church of San Rocco was partly built to give the villagers of Solcio, now part of the commune of the town of Lesa, an alternative to their 13th-century hilltop church.

Looking up to Chiesa do Sant'Antonio, ie Church of Saint Anthony

The climb does not look much, but the route turned out to be quite steep, and had a medieval air to it.

The Saint Anthony the church is dedicated to is almost certainly a Portuguese nobleman's son, christened Fernando Martins de Bulhões, who won fame for his teaching and for helping the poor in and around Padua, northeast Italy.

He died in 1231, aged 35, and was canonised by Pope Gregory IX less than a year later.

The church, presumably must have been built within a few years of Anthony's death, looks strictly functional from outside, and I was not able to enter.

However, the walk was the thing - the church just gave it a theme, and without it I almost certainly would not have explored the hillside of Solcio.

Italy Trip

HAVE returned from a long weekend spent in the north Italian town of Lesa on Lake Maggiore.

Opposite my hotel was a church dedicated to San Rocco (the literal translation is Saint Rock, but his name is usually rendered in English as Roch).

He was born in Montpellier, in what is now south France, in the late-13th or early-14th century, when the city was part of the Aragonese empire.
Roch's father was apparently the city's governor, but died when the future saint was 19.
According to the Golden Legend, Roch distributed his wealth among the poor, joined the Franciscans and went on pilgrimage to Rome.
He worked tirelessly among plague victims, before falling ill and withdrawing into a forest to recover.
While returning to Montpellier, Roch was allegedly arrested by his uncle, accused of being a spy, and imprisoned in a dungeon for five years, until he died aged about 30.
Wikipedia states that Roch is "patron saint of dogs, invalids, falsely accused people, bachelors, and several other things."

The church in Solcio on the outskirts of Lesa

The church was built in the 1820s by trader Felice Borroni, who made his fortune in the Netherlands before retiring to his native Italy.
The bell tower was added in the 1930s, replacing a smaller one, and interior decorations have also been changed over the decades.