The church of San Giorgio, beside Bellagio’s town hall, is a small Lombard-Comacine Romanesque building, contemporary with the basilica of San Giacomo: the bell tower spans a little portico closed by a gate, which once guarded the entrance to the first wall circuit of the medieval village, and the attached oratory has been since 1658 the seat of the confraternity of the Cinturati.
History
No document fixes the date of construction: from its forms and techniques the end of the 11th or the start of the 12th century is thought likely, as the outer south wall of the oratory shows, on the steps, in stone blocks with splayed little windows and a small portal. The apse and altar, which in churches of that period faced east, were moved to the opposite side, and the entrance was brought towards the road.
The building of today’s town hall was long a hospital of Saints George and Eustace, already mentioned in ducal rescripts of 1418, when it belonged to the commune. In 1505 the commune ceded it to the Augustinians of Como, with the obligation to have two Masses said, to distribute wine and polenta to the village’s poor and to keep a preacher in Lent. In 1657, with the setting up of the parish of San Giacomo in Borgo, the territory was split off from San Giovanni’s; in 1658 the Augustinian fathers of San Giorgio founded the male confraternity of the Blessed Virgin of the Belt, the “cinturati”, recognised by Bishop Lazzaro Carafino on 9 July 1671 and aggregated in 1685 to the archconfraternity of San Giacomo in Bologna; in 1808 it also took the name of the Blessed Sacrament. The devotion comes from the tradition of the gift of the belt to Saint Monica, mother of Saint Augustine, seen in the old statue venerated in the church, in a window of the basilica of San Giacomo and in many furnishings (Bellagio Lake Como, SIUSA).
What to see
The Romanesque parts survive outside: the perimeter wall in blocks, the splayed windows and the small portal. The bridging bell tower can be seen from salita Genazzini. In the Chapter room remain the 17th-century choir stalls, in carved walnut, and on the vault a large fresco with the Virgin handing a monk the belt. Inside is also the wooden statue of the Madonna of the Belt, which according to Wikipedia goes out in procession on the second Sunday of September.
Practical information
- We found no up-to-date official source for opening hours: to visit the church it is best to ask the parish of Bellagio.
- Not far away is the basilica of San Giacomo.
Sources
- Bellagio Lake Como, Chiesa di San Giorgio
- SIUSA, Parrocchia di San Giacomo di Bellagio
- Wikipedia, Chiesa di San Giorgio (Bellagio) entry.
