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Trezzo sull'Adda
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Show an other place around Milan worth a visit: |
 Trezzo sull'Adda is a town 40 km east of Milan located on the Adda river, at a narrow bend that the river forms before plunging into a long and narrow gorge.
The town is very old and its foundation dates back to the Celtic era in the fourth century BC. The site was then inhabited by the Romans and the Lombards. Of the latter, various necropolises were found in the second half of the twentieth century. Excavations have unearthed crosses, belts, swords and spurs.
In the Lombard period (sixth-eighth century) the town was transformed into a fortified village. The construction of the fortress and its tower is attributed to the famous queen Teodolinda.
In the Sforza era, a large bridge over the Adda was built near Trezzo sull'Adda with a single span 72 meters long and 25 meters high over the water. It was also on several levels, to allow the separate passage of pedestrians and wagons. Unfortunately, only a few remains of the great bridge are still present today and until the end of the nineteenth century the crossing of the Adda was only possible by ferry.
Trezzo sull'Adda is easily accessible by car via the A4 motorway.
Things to visit are various.
- Visconti Castle (Fig. 2): According to tradition, it was built, as mentioned, in the early Middle Ages by Queen Theodolinda, queen of the Lombards (therefore in a period between the end of the sixth and the first quarter of the seventh century).
Barnabò Visconti was locked up in it until his death by his nephew Gian Galeazzo, who had ousted him.
The castle underwent a serious period of decline in the nineteenth century, when it was even transformed into a quarry for already squared building materials.
Currently it is used as a setting for cultural and artistic events in the open air.
Visconti Castle in more detail.
- Provostal church of Saints Gervasius and Protasius: It was built between 1362 and 1370. Between 1899 and 1933 it was completely renovated in neo-Romanesque style. In particular, the facade dates back entirely to that period. The bell tower was also rebuilt in the same period in neo-medieval style.
The church has three naves, without a transept but with a large polygonal apse at the end of the central nave. The side aisles end instead with two chapels with a rectangular base.
The elements of greatest artistic interest in the church are made up of the pictorial decoration of the apse and those of the chapel at the head of the right aisle, known as the Crucifix Chapel.
The first were painted between 1591 and 1592 by Aurelio Luini and Giovanni Pietro Gnocchi. In the apsidal basin the Pentecost is represented in the upper part, represented however not in the usual way, but according to the specific model proposed by Gregory XIII. Below is depicted a Virgin enthroned surrounded by a multitude of figures, including, next to her, St. Paul and St. Peter. Curiously there are also some women and a Moor.
On the wall of the choir, in the center, St. Ambrose, St. Gervasius and St. Protasius superimposed out of scale on an older pre-existing polyptych. This configuration is the result of the 1929 restorations, which made the polyptych visible again without eliminating the figures of the three saints painted above it.
At the ends of the wall of the choir, within perspective rooms, there are two Saints deacons bearing the attribute of the grill, St. Vincent and St. Lawrence.
The figures on the choir wall are attributed to Gnocchi, those of the Pentecost to Luini.
The oldest part, however, is the Chapel of the Crucifix, with decorations of the Giotto school painted in 1362. On the vault there are the symbols of the four evangelists while a crucifixion is depicted on the back wall. In the chapel there is a notable medieval statue of St. Benedict, perhaps coming from the French abbey of Cluny.
The main altar of the church is from the eighteenth century, with inlays of polychrome marble.
- Sanctuary of the Divine Maternity of Concesa (Fig. 3): The sanctuary and the adjoining convent were built in a typically Baroque style between 1635 and 1646 at the behest of Cardinal Cesare Monti on a project by the architects Francesco Richini and Carlo Buzzi.
The Sanctuary and the Convent were immediately entrusted to the Discalced Carmelite Fathers.
In the Napoleonic era the complex was transformed into a spinning mill and therefore underwent a period of decline, which ended only with the return of the Carmelites in 1857.
The Sanctuary of Concesa is built close to the Adda, under the fortress of Concesa, a spur of rock that dominates the Adda valley.
The altarpiece of the main altar, depicting a Nursing Virgin, is called "Madonna di Concesa" and is considered by tradition to be a miraculous image, in particular as regards everything that has to do with motherhood.
- Oratory of San Rocco: Small church probably built in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. The dedication suggests that its construction is somehow linked to the end of a plague epidemic.
It contains late Renaissance and Baroque frescoes and an altar with a large carved and gilded wooden retable containing an altarpiece depicting a Virgin with Child with Saints Rocco and Sebastian.
- Chapel of the Dead of the Quarries: It is a small church built in the first half of the seventeenth century, and then enlarged in the eighteenth century, near the hospital built at that time outside the town to welcome the sick of the plague of 1629. The facade of the building, unfortunately in a not good state of conservation, reveals traces of a large fresco depicting the allegory of death which occupied the entire surface. Inside, on the back wall, a seventeenth century fresco depicting the crucifix between the Virgin of the Rosary and San Rocco.
- Villa Visconti Crivelli (Fig. 5): It is located in a position overlooking the Adda river and has Renaissance origins. In the seventeenth centuryt it became a villa of delight .
Initially owned by the Visconti family, the villa passed from hand to hand and eventually became the property of the Milanese Crivelli family. The noble Vitaliano Crivelli, born in 1806, is responsible for the art collection now exhibited in the Quadreria Crivelli, a small museum housed in the villa and which boasts works from 1400 to 1800.
The villa houses the municipal library and its park is now a public park. In it, just near the entrance to the villa, some seventh-century burials are visible.
Villa Visconti Crivelli in more detail.
- Villa Bassi: In De Magri street 21. Noble historic residence dating back to the sixteenth century, built on previous buildings of the fourteenth century. The villa has a C-shaped plan. On the back there is a small park that houses ancient trees. Antonio Bassi (1764-1826) hosted in its music room, with original musical instruments, the violinists Randolphe Kreutzer and Alessandro Rolla. Alessandro Manzoni was also among the guests of the villa.
- Villa Appiani: Elegant eighteenth-century building on three floors, with L-shaped plan and portico on coupled columns, right in the heart of the town. It is the seat of the Municipality of Trezzo sull'Adda.
- Villa Cavenago Sala: The elegant building is a typical example of eighteenth-century noble residence. It was built for the Cavenago counts, lords of the village in the 18th century. Inside it has rooms with frescoed ceilings,
embellished with tapestries, paintings and precious furniture. It is currently rented for various kinds of events: villacavenago.it.
- Power plant Alessandro Taccani (larger picture): Power plant built in the early twentieth century in Art Nouveau style to exploit the water flow of the Adda river. It is still in working order.
- WWF Natural Oasis: The territory of Trezzo sull'Adda hosts two different WWF natural oases: Oasi Le Foppe (SP2, 62, 20056 Trezzo sull'Adda (MI)) and Oasi della Fornace (Via Dell'Oasi s / n Trezzo sull'Adda ( MI)), both with free access. More details on: oasilefoppe.it.
Categories: Places of historical value of artistic value
Trezzo sull'Adda |
Further pictures of Trezzo sull'Adda in the section Photography |