Art
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If you leave Sarnico along the shore of the lake and you make for Predore, along the road, in a typical lake landscape made of olive trees and flowers, you meet the little St. George’s church. Datable back to the XV century, it shows typically medieval shapes, in spite of the numerous rearrangements it has been subjected to throughout the centuries.
When San Carlo Borromeo visited it (1575), it just included the present presbyter, while the other parts were added later. The simple and suggestive structure is typical of the Romanesque architecture, with in sight-stone walls, hut covering and agile little bell-tower.
The facade looks west and ends in a triangular tympanum. In the centre there is the main door with a sandy contour and shaped crowning.
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Through this opening you reach the rectangular room of the church with wooden and tile roof recently remade. In the presbyter there is the only altar and a painting by E.Campioni (1975), replacing an eighteenth-century work stolen a couple of years ago. On the counter-facade a Madonna’s head remains as a very corroded evidence of the original inner decoration.
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The inside is simple and bare, but communicates an extraordinary sensation of peace. Once reached the centre of the tower, immediately after the town council, there is the Parish church, entitled to the Holy Heart and St. John the Baptist.
Predore boasts ancient origins, proved by evidences related to the roman period, some of them preserved in the archaeological museum, placed next to the church. So we believe that already in the year one thousand there was a church, changed throughout the centuries to answer the needs of a growing community. Each change was followed by a consecration, as the documents and reports preserved in the parish archives show. The last stage of this gradual progress is the building rising in the heart of the built-up-area, near the harbour and Foresti’s halved tower (XIV-XV century).
Completely rebuilt between 1780 and 1800, on the walls it preserves three layers of frescoes painted from 1300 to 1700: those that can be still admired can be dated back to the XIX century and are by the painter Filippo Comerio from Como (above the presbyter), by Francesco Cucchi (above the main door), by Giovanni Brighenti (on the main vault) and by Giuseppe Riva (the Crucifix). This church with polished architectural lines was left during the last century when, beginning from 1909, the present facade, overlooking the road that links Sarnico to Tavernola, was built. It was planned in the seventeenth-century-style by Giovanni Barboglio, was consecrated in 1916 and entitled to the Holy Heart and St. John the Baptist.
The noble facade, designed by Luigi Angelini and carried out in 1929, is divided into overlapping orders and has a short classic arch and other elements made of Sarnico stone. They made out four niches housing Saints’ statues shaped by Alessandro Ghislandi. The inside consists of one nave with central transept, on which the tambour of the wide dome lays down.
The general decoration of the vaults is by Domenico Zappettini (1914), who worked together with Amleto Bocchi from Brescia.
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There are also a lot of paintings that basically can be dated back to the present century: three paintings of the choir with episodes of St. John the Baptist’s life are signed by Giuseppe Riva (1902) and come from the old church. St. Faust’s altar-piece is by Natale Marzenti (1935), while four paintings and several frescoes are by Agostino e Vittorio Manini (1940-1946). Besides these works some seventeenth-century-paintings are preserved, such as St. Anthony with a fanciful carved-wood frame, Christ crowned of thorns and the Madonna of the Belt; the Madonna with St. Felix, ascribed to Francesco Zucco and bought in 1947.
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The main altar (1915) was designed by Luigi Angelini, who also planned the choir, carried out in 1927. On the sides of the nave there are other six altars. Marzoli e Rossi’s firm from Varese (1925) carried out the organ. The bell-tower was raised between 1915 and 1921.
In the middle of the hill in the north of the town, in an extraordinary commanding position on the lake and on Torbiere of Iseo, is the Shrine of the Madonna of the Snow, built during the XV century and deeply changed in the subsequent periods. You reach it through a very steep road or going up 288 steps.
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History
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After leaving Sarnico, skirting the lake through a nice typically lacustral landscape, shortly before reaching Predore, you meet the Little Church of Saint Giorgio. This building catches the eye with its old architecture pleasantly restored and keeps some particulars of the previous church; at the inside, some fragments of frescos of the XV th century have been recovered.
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A little further, you reach the built-up area, put in an excellent position on a slope between lake and hill at the mouth of the Rino stream. The complex was already known and frequented during the Roman Age; this is witnessed by the several discoveries of remarkable quality starting from the last century. Among these, there are the traces of a villa with thermal rooms, probably belonging to the Noniis, one of the most illustrious families of the Imperial Age, coming from Brescia; it’s an altar dedicated to the Goddess Diana by the consul Nonius Arrius Mucianus, now conserved at the Archaeological Museum of Bergamo, and several graves. These and other finds, such as capitals, coins, fragments of mosaic floorings of the II nd and V th centuries A.D., the old baptistery of the IV th century A.D. are kept in a little archaeological museum, furnished near to the Parish Church.
This last one, dedicated to the Holy Heart and to Saint Giovanni Battista, was built in 1909, following a plan by the Professor Giovanni Barbaglio. At the inside, a precious painting by the artist Francesco Zucco from Bergamo (XVII th century), showing the “Holy Mary with Saint Felice from Cantalice”, catches the eye.
The old archipresbyterial church was built around the XI th century in the old residential complex of Predore, in that charming little peninsula next to the cut-off tower, where also several witnesses of the roman presence were found, since the roman villa of the consul M. Arrio Muciano stood in this place during the Roman Age. The church, today assigned to a civilian use, underwent several transformations which compromised its original medieval structure. At the inside, paintings of the XIX th century are kept, under which, in more layers, there are other paintings of previous ages.
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On the lakeside, the peculiar Forestis halved tower of the XIII th-XIV th century stands, today put in the garden of a stylish villa built at the beginning of the century.
Its ancient collapse was caused by a ground sinking, even if its curious shape has made people believe in a more fanciful interpretation.
As a matter of fact, according to the common belief, two brothers, one Guelph, the other Ghibellin, “because of a quarrel, wanted, one to leave the tower where it stood and the other to put it down; and so, with a kind of Solomon’s judgement, it was cut into two halves.
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The historical complex of this town, which stands at the top of the coastal road, preserves but a few details of the old fortified hamlet and of the medieval castle; on the contrary, the narrow little lanes, which divide themselves into a steep slope up to the highest edges of the built-up area, are characteristic.
North of the town, in an excellent position at the middle of the mountain, the Sanctuary of Our Holy Mary of The Snow stands; it was built in the XV th century and afterwards transformed and enlarged many times; the sanctuary is accessible by following a road particularly steep or on foot by climbing a flight of steps made of 288 stairs; from here, the view which opens on the lake and on the Iseo mosses is excellent.
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After coming back to the coastal road, the carriageway which, through a suggestive and nice landscape leads to Tavernola, deserves to be run; at the edges of the carriages, some rare specimens of aquatic pines (tassodi) are worthy of notice while on the impending calcareous rocks a particular plant life has settled down; it contributes to the Mediterranean atmosphere of this corner of the Low Sebino area.
The prehistoric settlement of the cave of the “Horn Hole”, 800 metres high and in a position overlooking the lake, already used during the Neolithic Age, also deserves to be seen.
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