Frammenti di una storia. Architettura, scultura e pittura fra XVI e XIX secolo

The vicissitudes of the parish church of Sonvico are described here through the rereading of archival docu- ments and testimonies still present in the church, some of which have been moved from their original location. Although it has lost some of the sculptures and decorations, the gilded wooden tabernacle (1582) of the former high altar is the most important artwork of the Mannerist-early Baroque phase, along with the valu- able decorative campaign of the presbytery in the first fifteen years of the 17th century. A number of sacred objects, including several reliquary busts, and some canvas paintings, as well as a fragment of a scagliola antependium, show the taste of the artis- tic production that reached Sonvico from centers such as Lugano, Milan and Como in the first half of the 18th century. The last decades of that century saw the start of the first major works on the parish church, of which the two stucco statues of Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Valentine, modeled by the Notari of Cadro, are a significant testimony.