Art
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Viadanica is an ancient agricultural settlement placed on the left side of the torrent Guerna, in an almost hidden and isolated position in Adrara Valley. The built-up area lacks in a real centre, because it develops on a wide territory with little hamlets. In district Pirrone the inhabitants are really affectionate to the church of St. Albert from Sicily, whose devotion started in 1630.
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In district Capra, the main one, the parish Church entitled to St. Anthony Abbč and John the Baptist rises on an area where already in the XVI century there was a religious building. Indeed there was the ancient church attended by the inhabitants of the districts the most distant from Canzanica. The title of St. John the Baptist was added to the original one in 1540, when the church was rebuilt to answer the needs of a growing community. Further extension works started in 1675 under Giacomo and Gian Battista Mazza’s guidance, who gave the structure the present shapes.
The simple facade (completed in 1910) is divided in three orders superimposed by cornices and bricked pilasters with capitals vertically cover it. It is characterised by a portal with a stone contour, a windowed opening and two niches with triangular tympana housing the Saints’ statues. In the last years the big bronze doors located at the main entrance have increased the artistic value of the church.
The decoration of the interior was gradually carried out since 1750, when the frescoes on the vault were painted. In 1773 Gian Battista Cucchi carried out the stucco elements, renewed in 1909 by Emilio Bettinelli, who made them stand out with quite good gilding. Also the altars developing along the side walls are later, datable back to 1773 (altar of the Rosary), to 1837 (altar of the Crucifix), to 1933 (altar of the Holy Heart). The altar of the Rosary is surely the most valuable, because of the presence of an oval painting with the Mysteries, but above all because of St. Dominic’s and St. Catherine’s statues, sculpted by Luigi Andrea Fantoni in 1787. In 1884 Elia Fornoni designed the main altar afterwards carried out by Ernesto Paleni in 1904.
The inside is embellished by several pictorial works, among which the altar-piece of the Introduction of Jesus in the temple, by Jacopo Negretti called Palma the Younger (1548-1628), stands out. Datable back to the ninth decade of the XVI century, the altar-piece shows clear references to Tintoretto’s and Veronese’s painting, but also extraordinary new elements, such as the theatrical character of the composition, the monumentality of the architecture on the background and the vivacity of the brush-strokes.
The three paintings of the choir by an unknown artist of the XVIII century are very interesting as well. They are placed within precious stucco frames and portray Mary’s Glory with Saint Patrons (in the middle); St. John the Baptist led in front of Erode and the Decollation of St. John the Baptist. If you look carefully at the bottom of the central painting, you will notice that the painter put a reproduction of the new church, built on the bank of a torrent.
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The Transit of St. Joseph and St. Jerome Emiliani at Mary’s feet are works by Pietro Servalli of the current century (1912), and so are the Holy Family and St. Francis by Matteo Pedrali (1945). The bell tower was raised on the ruins of the previous one (1562) beginning from 1660 but it was finished only in 1887.
From the church you can go along a steep slope and a hairpin bend road up to the typical hamlets Giogo, Due Torri and Lerano.
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If you go down along the only road that passes through the town, you reach the old road leading you to the districts Riva e Rasetti and a bit further on to the industrial complex, risen in recent years instead of fields.
At this point on the right you can turn into a steep slope leading you to St. Alexander in Canzanica, placed on a wide alluvial terrace above the torrent Guerna, just in front of the town of Adrara San Martino. The historical centre is composed of the church with the churchyard and the ancient rectory, structures that received the title of national monument in 1967 because of their historical value.
Entitled to St. Alexander Martyr, the church has been serving the purpose of parish church since the beginning of 1500 for all the people living in the east part of Adrara Valley. The present building is the result of several integration and changes, but the agile bell-tower and the well-preserved apse reveal their romantic origins. Wider than the original one, the church is made of only one nave with a hut covering in wood and roof tiles. It ends eastwards with a semicircular stone apse.
The interior preserves few but precious evidences of the frescoes that once fully embellished it: in the apsidal basin there is an Almighty Christ of 1300, surrounded by what remains of the symbols of the four Evangelists. At the bottom of the apse you might notice some very damaged fragments of Saints’ and Angels’ figures. Saint Bishop and the Madonna on the throne with the Child along the wall are interesting as well: the colours are still bright, but the complex is damaged by the cracks caused by the hammer blows they used to get the plaster stuck.
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Out of the wall housing these frescoes, they made a chapel with stucco decorations, which clash with the simplicity of this setting, which gives off an intense and deep spirituality.
The little cemetery added to the church to the east received the dead of the parish of Viadaca up to 1938, but now it lies quiet and deserted, protected by a boundary wall with crowning and by a thick vegetation.
Also the building rising on the above side of the church shows a certain structural interest. It is characterised by vaults on the ground floor and by wooden roofs on the mezzanine and you reach it through an ashlar portal with a round-headed arch.
The walls still bear traces of windows with the medieval motif of the tympanum made of an only triangular stone.
There are no sure historical documents about its origin since the papers are silent on this point, leaving the foundation basically wrapped by the thick halo of the mystery.
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History
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Viadanica is a very old agricultural town located at the left of the Guerna stream, in an almost hidden and isolated position in the beautiful and verdant little valley of Adrara. The built-up area, which doesn’t have a town centre, breaks down on a wide hilly territory with tiny hamlets, each of which keeps old rustic buildings and ruins of medieval structures.
In the town district called Capra, which is the main, there are narrow sloping little roads, which briefly wind themselves, almost hidden and inaccessible through portals and porticoed passages which lead to the road itself.
In this very district, the seventeen-century Parish Church dedicated to St. Antonio The Abbot and to Giovanni Battista can be found; inside, a big altar-piece signed by Palma Il Giovane (The Young) showing the “Presentation of Jesus at the Temple” (second altar on the right) and two interesting wooden statues by Andrea Fantoni dated back to 1787 are kept. There are also some big sixteen-century fragments of frescos (today kept in the near rectory), which belonged to a pre-existing religious building; they remind us of the technique of The Romanino, the painter coming from Brescia.
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Starting from the Parish Church, you can keep on climbing a steep slope and then a series of hairpin bends until you reach the picturesque hamlets of Giogo, Due Torri (Two Towers-characteristic centre with strong medieval marks) and Lerano.
This is the ideal spot to spend a day in full harmony with nature, in a landscape and naturalistic environment which is still uncontaminated. Lerano is a perfect starting point to make nice walks and excursions; you can reach the top of the Bronzone Mountain (1334 metres), or the well-known “Scanecňl” spring or, going forward on the right following a dirt road, the Cambline Hill (from here, the view on the lake and on the Iseo mosses is extremely good); the little cave of the “Bus del Coren”, already inhabited during the pre-historic age, is very close.
Coming back towards the Parish Church, you enter the old road to Adrara (on the right, a little before the graveyard), until you reach, close to the little bridge on the Guerna stream, a short dirt road on the right which leads to the romanic little church of St. Alessandro in Canzanica, among the oldest worship places of the whole valley, dating back to the IX th century.
Some remaining walls close to the building that used to be the near rectory can be traced back to the primitive church; on the contrary, the apsis, the beautiful bell-tower, and part of the little church can be dated back to the romanic age; some enlargements occurred in the following periods have modified the overall set up of the whole structure, but without deprive it of that harmony and pleasantness which still today mark it.
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At its inside, the church still keeps some valuable fourteen-fifteen century frescos; an “Almighty Christ “ inside the apsis, a figure of a “St. Bishop” along the wall and a “Holy Mary” on the only side altar are fairly preserved.
Some historians suppose that the church was built during the Lombard Age by that same Gasindo who gave its placename to the resort Gazenda, which lies in the opposite side of the valley.
As far as the building date is concerned, the historical information isn’t sure at all; in 1967 and even after some restoration works highlighted the romanic structures of the building much more than before, and it was recognized as a “national monument”.
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