Santa Caterina del Sasso

Santa Caterina del Sasso Ballaro is a hermit and pilgrimage monastery in the Italian community Leggiuno in the province of Varese.

The monastery is located directly on Lake Maggiore, and, like many former hermit sites built on an inaccessible location on a very steep hillside. It is now accessible from the sea and from the land side. The monastery consists of two parts, the church and the monastery building. You can reach the monastery by a spiral staircase and a lift.

Architectural History

Construction began in the early 13th century, but the main work dated around 1300 / 1320. The core of the building complex is the small church of St.. Catherine is ordained by Alexandria. The epithet " del sasso " or extended " del Sasso Ballaro " refers to an event of 1640, when a landslide came down the slope and caused significant damage. Sasso means stone and ballare means as much as wobble.

Supposedly the merchant Alberto Besozzi have founded the monastery after he had survived a shipwreck happy here and had subsequently become a hermit. His body is kept inside the church. In 1230 Dominican monks built the small convent and oratory. By 1450, additional staircases were drafted that connected the individual components to each other. In the following centuries, the monastery was rebuilt several times and expanded to provide more space for the growing streams of pilgrims can. The bell tower of the 14th century is still Romanesque. The Renaissance decorative forms in today's façade from the 15th century.

Because of the extreme slope the monastery threatened to break apart a few years ago, and began in 1970, einzurüsten the entire system including the surrounding rock zone and restore. In the course of extensive restoration work the entire foundation of the monastery was, both in terms of the rock as the ground, secured by steel trains that are anchored deep in the mountain, so there will be no dangerous and the existence of the monastery threatening ground shifts again. After 16 years, the church was reopened.

The interior of the church is aligned due to the steep slopes and the difficult subsoil of the curvature of the mountain. It is richly frescoed when here in moisture damage have destroyed significant parts of the painting. The frescoes are mainly from the 16th century and were decked out in addition in the 17th century with some floral motifs. In the center of the church is the sarcophagus of the founder of this system, the hermit Alberto.

In the courtyard that separates the church from the convent buildings, there is an old wine press of in 1769.