November 2006: Locarno - San Francesco Church

Alleys lead south downhill to the tall Chiesa di San Francesco, consecrated as part of a monastery in the fourteenth century over an earlier church that had been founded by wandering Franciscans either during St Francis of Assisi’s lifetime or shortly after his death in 1226. In 1480, a member of the order established a hermitage on the hillside above Locarno, which is now the Madonna del Sasso pilgrimage site. Renovation of the church in the sixteenth century included frescoes, most of which are now fading badly but still marvellous, really marvellous.