Art
|
Foresto is located in a nice valley, once characterised by wide orchards. Today it’s a very modern resort, renowned for floriculture. You reach it from Credaro and Adrara (Collepiano), through a road leading you directly to the square of St Mark’s church, which rises in the heart of the town, surrounded by a vast space, that became a courtyard between 1834 and 1859. The church was built in baroque style at the end of the XVII century, consecrated with solemn celebrations in 1692 and entitled to St Mark evangelist. It’s a one-aisle-structure, with presbytery, choir and vaulted covering. From the outside it is sober and austere, with a triangular ending facade, surmounted by the patron saint’s statue.
Along the sides of the building there are two arcades built in the second half of the XIX century to give shelter to parishioners. These arcades are cadenced by round-headed arches, which are laid down on stone columns with high plinth. On the left side there are four arcades and five on the right one.
This difference is due to the presence of the bell-tower, which rises close to the church. Its position lets imagine that it was built together with the church and then its height was increased in 1731, when they made the stone termination that starts from the tower cell. Two of the supporting columns stand out for incisions: one brings the date 1615, which lets imagine its belonging to an earlier structure. An escutcheon and an IBIS inscription embellish the other one. Some plaques are contained in the back wall near the bell-tower, while in the vaults some fresco rests are preserved: a medallion with God Almighty and St Christopher of the XVIII century, discovered underneath the plaster in 1976.
Entering the church you are agreeably surprised by the richness and value of the decorative elements: frescos, marbles, stuccoes, inlaid woods, great artists’ works, among which you can count Andrea Fantoni and his studio. The vault is embellished by four medallions painted by Gioacchino Manzoni in 1793, in which there are episodes of St Mark’s life and precisely St Mark’s preaching, St Mark pulled away from the altar, St Mark refuses to sacrifice the idols and St Mark comforted by God’s vision. The Holy Trinity is portrayed in the cup dome covering the presbyter, while in the pendentives there are the pictures of the Evangelists.
Among the most valuable paintings, placed along the walls of the aisle, we mention a painting with St Louis, St Apollonia and St Lucy (XVII-XVIII century), Immaculate erected in glory to the presence of St Francis from Assisi and Anthony from Padua (1657) and Madonna of the rosary by the painter Agostino Litterini (1642-1738), signed and dated 1675.
|
|
All the works by Fantoni are well preserved and of exquisite workmanship. Precious wooden confessionals, decorated by intaglios of cartouches, angels’ little faces and fruit, are dated 1703 and ascribed to Andrea Fantoni. In the Immaculate’s chapel there is a marble altar of 1684 and a precious wooden ancon, made of spiral columns supporting a moulding and a central aedicule. The whole is a Grazioso Fantoni the Elder’s work and may be dated back to 1680.
Then there is the pulpit of huge value, leant on the column between the second and the third chapel. It was made at Andrea Fantoni’s studio in 1690 and presents a rich iconography whose symbolic motifs and holy characters harmoniously coexist.
|
The last one of this sequence is the altar of the Last Supper in white marble embellished by a high relief frontal medal. The ancon with columns, tympanum and two big angels is made of the same material. The altar and the ancon are by Andrea Fantoni.
The triumphal arch marks the shift to the presbyter with the altar of the Madonna of the Rosary: the steps, the frontal and the Lord’s table are in marble, while the ancon is in engraved and gilt wood. Next to it there are two polychrome and life-sized statues, which represent St. Anne and St. Joachim. All the ancon is by Andrea Fantoni. Two oil paintings by Bartolomeo Litterini: on the left St Mark (1707) and on the right the Saint’s Martyrdom (1707). Along the semicircular wall of the choir there are three paintings within stucco frames; in the centre St Mark in Glory, on the sides two stories about the transport of St. Mark’s body to Venice. They can be dated back to the XVIII century and are the work of an unknown artist. The walnut seats carved with smooth reflected dossal were carried out by Andrea Fantoni in 1721.
Above the left side door there is the organ manufactured by Bolognino from Brescia in 1712.
Some years after the construction of the church, the inhabitants of the quarters the most distant from the town centre, expressed their desire to build a place of cult and prayer among their houses. After getting the consent of the competent authorities, they started the creation of the little church, then entitled to St. Michel Archangel. The citizens of Foresto themselves financed the works with legacies and donations. Benchmark for the parishioners, the structure then racked and ruined and rose again to the ancient splendour only recently, when it was restored and repaired with care.
It’s the main one among the subsidiary churches and it’s preceded by a little parvis on which a lively facade opens. The pilasters rest on a high sandy base, mark three vertical sections and conclude into the tympanum underlined by a frame.
The only one nave is divided into three spans and linked to the presbyter, which is characterised by a semi-hexagonal plan. In the nave the pilasters support the cornice above which the barrel vault is built. It is decorated with frescos portraying the Annunciation, Immaculate and Archangel Rafael (1980). On the walls there are interesting pictorial evidences that can be dated back to the XVIII and XIX centuries. In particular we can mention St. Michael, with a shaped frame, St Anne and St Mauro.
On the left side of the building they obtained a space that makes the church wider and increases its capacity. The main altar is dedicated to St. Michael, while that on the right side is consecrated to Mary’s Visitation. It was probably carried out from a Fantoni’s drawing and presents an ancon with a niche that houses a wooden statue of the Madonna (XVI-XVII century).
This statue was cleaned in 1980 and, while removing the superficial encrustation, the restores discovered it was entirely gilt and silvered. Beside the Madonna’s niche there are St. Joseph’s and St. Joachim’s statues, while at the top of the tympanum there are two little angels.
St. Mary’s church rises in the centre of district Bafforelli on the edge of the perish area. This little oratory was built in baroque style between 1842 and 1846 from a plan of Architect Marenzi from Tagliuno. It’s entitled to the Holy Name of Mary and replaces a more ancient building that dated back to 1714 and was demolished because it was in such disastrous conditions that it could no longer be used. The church rises close to some houses, preceded by a little parvis looking south.
The rectangular-planned-nave ends with a semicircular apse that houses the only altar with a painting of the XVIII century, that portrays the Madonna of the Rosary with St. Dominic and St. Peter. On the walls there are other paintings with stucco frames: St. Louis Gonzaga and St. Gaetano from Thiene; Expulsion of violators from the temple (above the central door); Crucifix, St. Anne with little Mary and St. Joseph (presbytery). On the vault there are three medals with the Holy Family, St. Anthony Abbè and the Madonna’s Nativity.
St. Joseph’s church is placed on a little terrace over the road Villongo – Foresto, linked to a flight of steps that leads to the parvis. It was built between the end of 1600 and the beginning of 1700 and presents an octagonal plan with cross vault and a sober stucco decoration. It was deeply changed during the last century, when they intervened several times to arrange the roof, the flooring, the external dyeing and the inner walls.
Before the changes made in the presbyter, there was an altar close to the back wall with the portray of St. Joseph with St. Anthony Abbè as altar-piece. This altar was demolished in 1970 to enlarge the zone of the presbytery and to put a new ark-shaped altar.
|
|
At the top of the near Conisio hill you see the shrine of St. John of the ants. The noble origins of this little church are proved by some ancient documents that remember it operating together with the near Served Friars’ monastery. It is oriented following the Christian tradition and presents a simple facade that overlooks the parvis. It has no important decorations, but it is characterised by a portal of the XVI century made of Sarnico stones, by a circular little window and by a two-slope roof that overhangs shaped brackets.
|
Inside it presents one rectangular-planned nave and wooden roof. The whole is animated by Our Lady of Sorrows’ chapel (left wall) and by the presbyter.
The chapel, covered by a barrel vault, juts out a lot from the perimeter of the church and it is linked to it by a round arch. The first work shows the Madonna with the Child and St. Charles and St. John the Baptist, the upper one Jesus’ baptism. Leant against the south wall there is the walnut hangings pew with caryatids.
The church is embellished by other paintings as well, such as that one signed by Francesco Zucco and dated 1615 with San Carlo Borromeo; Our Lady of Sorrows, a very retouched work; the painting of 1800 portraying Madonna with the Child; a fresco of the XV century with the Crucifix.
|
|
History
|
Placed in a verdant meadowy hollow once almost completely cultivated with orchards, nowadays Foresto is an industrial complex which has developed because of the many activities, among which the gardening nursery, which is very renowned.
You can reach it from Credaro, through a smooth carriageway, which leads directly to the large square in front of the Parish Church; all around, you can see a very pleasant hilly landscape with rows of vineyards and country homesteads, true architectural witnesses of a “country” culture, by now almost irreparably lost.
As far as the historic-artistic aspect is concerned, the Parish Church dedicated to Saint Marco the Evangelist is worthy of attention; it was risen in 1682 by restoring a pre-existing religious building.
The outside, almost stern, seems to clash with the rich and valuable inside, where the solid presence of works of art by Andrea Fantoni qualifies it among the most appreciable churches of the Calepio valley. The sculptor Andrea Fantoni has built the engraved pulpit, wonderful baroque masterpiece, two confessionals, the tribune of the main altar, with nice marble sculptures, three marble altar frontals with inlays and medals, the Rosary altarpiece, the organ case, as well as the chorus seats and the hangings bench.
|
|
On the contrary, the polychromatic wooden anchon with columns and statues has been risen by Father Grazioso Fantoni, a true museum of the artistic activity of the Fantonis of Rovetta.
Among the paintings, the eighteen-century altarpieces of “Our Lady of The Rosary” and of the “Saints Fermo and Rustico” (1707) by Agostino Litterini are worthy of attention; on the presbytery, the “Preaching” and a “Martyr of Saint Marco” by Bartolomeo Litterini.
Foresto gave birth to the legendary explorer Gennaro Sora, who, in 1928 was in command of the polar expedition to recover the famous “Red Curtain” of the shipwrecked people of the dirigible called “Italia”; in the main square of this town, a monument in remembrance of this eminent character has been risen; besides, a little museum has been furnished inside the town hall.
At the top of the near Cunisio Mountain you can see the Sanctuary of Saint Giovanni Battista, best known as “Saint Giovanni of the Ants”, because of the common belief that, each year, on august 29th, in the anniversary of Saint Giovanni’s beheading, a great number of winged ants used to join in this place, attracted by the festive sound of the church bells.
Already mentioned in documentary sources of the year 830, the building was inhabited by the Servite Fathers and then became the property of the Count Marco Alessandri. The church and the complex, damaged by the “vandals” and defrauded at the beginning of the seventies, have been recently restored; during these works, parts of the primitive church foundations have come out and, from under the plasters, some fragments of frescos of the Renaissance Age. The monastic building is now used as a refreshing spot; it has been completely restored, by highlighting some particulars of the old structure.
|
|
