The Cappella dei morti di peste, also called Cappella dei morti alla Crocetta or Cappella delle ossa, is a small chapel on the roadside, in via Agudio, in Malgrate: on 2 October 2026 it was returned to the community after a restoration.
What it is
It is a small votive chapel facing the road, at via Agudio 17, where the salita Sant’Antonio starts (LeccoToday, 27 November 2024). What gave it its name is the ossuary: inside are many bones, mostly skulls, which tradition attributes to plague victims. For Lombardia Beni Culturali it is a seventeenth-century chapel, owned by a Catholic religious body and protected by a notification of 6 May 1931 as an “ancient chapel - ossuary”. Votive chapels, the “santelle”, are scattered through Malgrate’s old town and this is the best preserved of those left (LeccoToday); for Leccoonline it is one of the best preserved in the Lecco area.
When it was built
The sources differ. In the same article LeccoToday writes that it is a chapel of sixteenth-century origin and that it was built in 1630 in memory of the plague dead. Leccoonline (3 October 2026) reports the parish priest’s words: it may date back to the sixteenth century, as a chapel of piety or suffrage along a road leading to the church, and only later became a place of memory for the victims, in particular of the plague of 1630. The regional record says seventeenth century.
The 2026 restoration
After more than a century since the last major maintenance, a conservative restoration lasting several months resolved the water infiltration and made colours and decorations visible again; it was promoted by the Fondo di Comunità of Malgrate with the parish and the municipality and funded partly by a call of the Fondazione Comunitaria del Lecchese (50%) and partly by fundraising (LeccoToday, 2024; Leccoonline, 2026). Before the restoration the outside paintings (souls in purgatory, symbols of the Passion, warning inscriptions) were hard to read.
A legend without proof
One tradition says the remains of a knight are kept inside; another links the place to a clash in 1532 between the Medeghino and the army of the Duchy of Milan, with the burial under the chapel of the captain Accorsino da Lodi. Neither has found documentary confirmation, as LeccoToday and Leccoonline recall; during the restoration excavations and checks ruled out structures immediately under the floor.
In the novel
Manzoni devoted some of the most intense pages of “The Betrothed” to the plague epidemic of 1630-1631 (LeccoToday). After the epidemic, commemorative chapels were built in several places in the area; this is one of the few left (Leccoonline). Wikivoyage lists it among the Manzoni sites.
Practical information
- Address: via Agudio 17, Malgrate. We have not found on an official source any hours or ways to visit: it is a chapel on the roadside.
- In the municipality of Malgrate there is also the Spiaggetta di Malgrate, on the lakefront.
- It is among the Manzoni sites of the Lecco area: see the Manzoni’s Lecco itinerary.
Sources
- Lombardia Beni Culturali, Cappella dei morti della Peste (record LC120-00359)
- LeccoToday, «Cappelletta dei morti di peste a Malgrate: ci sono i soldi per il restauro» (27 November 2024)
- Leccoonline, «Malgrate: restituita alla collettività la Cappella delle ossa dei morti» (3 October 2026)
- Wikivoyage, Luoghi manzoniani (coordinates)