The Parish Church

The Parish Church

The Parish Church was built for the Saints Pietro and Paolo and before 1700 it used to be far smaller than now. It is 34 m. long and 9 m. wide and the main altar in positioned at its east end. Along the inner walls we can see 8 hollow areas (4 at each side), six of them are chapels while the other two are side entrances. The atrium of the west main entrance was built in 1714. One of the six side chapels has contained the body of S. Matrobio Saveriano since 1673. The abse contains the choir (whose wooden furniture was made by Antonio Rassiga from Crana in 1793) and the presbytery.

The floor was built in 1839 and the organ in 1878. The stone walls of the church are decorated with a great variety of frescos by the Milan painters Pietro Molgiani and Giuseppe Valtorta and by the two brothers from Malesco Giuseppe and Carlo Sotta.

The Church Square Monumental Complex

The monumental Church Square in Malesco includes all the following civil and religious buildings:

• The Prish Curch
• S. Bernardino from Siena Oratory
• The Cross-stele (Cristele)
• The House of the Friars
• The Chapel of S. Carlo
• The bell tower
• Cemetery
• The Basilisk fountain

On the square also stood a small seventeenth-century oratory dedicated to St. Rocco, then demolished to allow the new layout.

From the ecclesiastical point of view, the parish of Malesco separated from that of Santa Maria Maggiore around the middle of the XII century.