Sondrio

Sondrio, a small town, lies in a green basin between the two hills of Triangia and Grumello, with Valmalenco behind it, surrounded by the imposing peaks of the Rhaetian Alps and the more regular Orobie range. It was not born as we admire it today, with this beautiful crown of vineyards and woods.

The green basin was carved over millennia by the waters of the Adda and the Mallero and shaped by the glacier which, travelling along the entire valley up to an altitude of almost 1,000 metres, died out at the edge of the Po Valley.

With the thaw, the ground began to be covered with vegetation and became fertile, allowing humans to live here first through hunting, then through pastoralism and agriculture. The first inhabitants of Sondrio settled on the lower mountain slopes because the valley floor was still affected by floods and seismic upheavals. The first people to arrive here, travelling up the valley, were Ligurians, and it is very likely that they brought the first vine plants, beginning the construction of terraces supported by dry-stone walls — an art that, remarkably, has endured ever since.

Let us now set off to discover Sondrio, among historic buildings, Baroque and Renaissance villas, squares, and nature.

We start from the railway station, leaving it behind as we walk along Corso XXV Aprile towards Piazza Campello, Sondrio’s second main square.

Curiosity

16 June 1885 was a great day for Sondrio: the first train arrived from Colico, and the town was full all day with people from nearby villages who came to admire the marvel. The crowd itself was a fascinating sight, because farmers still wore the colourful and picturesque traditional costumes.

Overlooking this square is the Town Hall — Palazzo Pretorio — whose 16th-century origins are clearly attested by the diamond-point rusticated entrance portal and the coats of arms frescoed in the entrance corridors — as well as the Collegiate Church of Saints Gervasio and Protasio, the patron saints of the city.

Palazzo Pretorio has a U-shaped plan and rises over four floors, one of which is underground. Its façade is slightly curved. It was modified several times over the centuries, but the appearance we see today is largely due to the renovation begun in 1915 by the Como engineer Antonio Giussani. The sgraffito decorations and frescoes on the exterior walls are inspired by Lombard and local Renaissance architecture.

The main building in Piazza Campello, however, is the Collegiate Church of Saints Gervasio and Protasio. The current church was built on the remains of an older one dating back to the 12th century, which was entirely demolished in the 18th century and then rebuilt to a design by Pietro Ligari, the greatest of Sondrio’s painters, whose works can be admired in numerous churches in Valtellina. The reconstruction, begun by Ligari in 1727, underwent several modifications.

This resulted in a somewhat uneven style in different parts of the church: the 18th-century Baroque nave contrasts with the Neoclassical façade, as well as with the presbytery in the same style.

The interior is arranged as a single nave with three bays covered by barrel vaults. Here it is possible to see some 17th-century paintings by Pietro Ligari, such as The Miracle of Saint Gregory the Great and the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

Next to the collegiate church stands the Torre Ligariana, the bell tower. At 59 metres high, it is divided into a base surrounded by stone seats and a fountain, a central body reaching up to the belfry marked by four arched windows (one on each side), and a roof with a small dome and a sphere on which the cross is mounted.

We leave Piazza Campello by taking Via Cavallotti and enter a maze of narrow streets that once formed Sondrio’s commercial heart. Grocers, clothing shops, household goods stores and food shops selling typical local products are still present and well worth a visit. Via Dante leads us to Piazza Cavour, one of Sondrio’s oldest squares.

For centuries, Piazza Cavour was a place for markets and the exchange of goods from all over Valtellina. From the small staircase beside the wall where water flows into a ground-level fountain symbolising the course of the ancient Malleretti — small water channels derived from the Mallero stream — we climb up to the embankment of the Mallero and follow it north. After a few dozen metres, we turn right to visit the Fracaiolo district, which in the Middle Ages hosted various workshops and craft activities that used the waters of the Mallero as motive power. Today one can still see the large covered washhouse, the channel with the sluices of the Malleretto canal, and at the end of the street we return to the embankment.

We reach the Gombaro bridge, which we cross to take a dirt path that runs along a woodland, climbing quite steeply for a few hundred metres towards the Ca’ Maioni hamlet, from where we reach the Cassandre footbridge. The Cassandre are the gorges into which the Mallero stream plunges as it leaves Valmalenco. After crossing the footbridge — 145 metres long and 100 metres high — we reach Ponchiera, a small settlement with a beautiful panorama.

From here we return towards Sondrio, descending briefly along the provincial road as far as Castel Masegra. The castle dominating Sondrio, in a strategic position at the entrance to Valmalenco, is the only military structure in Sondrio of medieval origin to have remained intact and in use up to the present day, changing its function and architectural structure over the centuries until it acquired the layered and varied appearance that characterises it today. It now hosts CAST – the CAstle of Mountain STories, a permanent exhibition dedicated to mountain stories.

From the castle we take Via Scarpatetti, the old farming quarter that has kept almost all of its original character intact: here you can still see the typical rural houses with wooden balconies, the stone involt, the supports for oil lamps, and the stones “per la pòsa”.

As we walk through the district we encounter three small chapels dedicated to Marian devotion, marking the three periods when the street was in celebration, as a testament to popular faith. At the end of the street, Piazza Quadrivio opens up, overlooked by Palazzo Sertoli with its magnificent frescoed Ballroom and a garden featuring an important collection of contemporary sculptures. The square owes its name to its original role as a place of transit and rest for carts (from “Carravium”) entering the town from the eastern gate, “Ponta de Prada”. It was also the connection between the noble area (the “Street of the Palaces”) and the farming quarter of Scarpatetti.

We take Via del Gesù to reach the building that once housed the Enological Society and all activities related to the vinification and marketing of Valtellina wine. The “Le Volte” Centre is located in the evocative stone cellars. Here once stood the largest barrel in the world, called Noè, which was unfortunately dismantled in the 1960s. After the society dissolved in the 1990s, the upper floors of the palace were assigned to regional offices, while the cellars became municipal property and today host food-and-wine events where local products can be tasted.

We then follow Via Piazzi for a few dozen metres alongside Palazzo Parisi, headquarters of the Chamber of Commerce, to reach the Sassi gardens — once the gardens of an ancient noble palace — and the Civic Museum, MVSA, housed in Palazzo Sassi De’ Lavizzari. We walk along Via Lavizzari, then turn into Via Parravicini, cross Piazzetta Angelo Custode — overlooked by the small church of the same name, the Marlianici and Longoni palaces — and from here climb Vicolo San Siro to reach the Ligari staircase, which we descend to return to Piazza Cavour.

We choose to follow the Mallero embankment south to admire, beyond the bridge, Palazzo Guicciardi, seat of the BIM Consorzio dei Comuni del Bacino Imbrifero Montano of the Adda and the Mera, and to find ourselves in the gardens of the 16th-century Palazzo Martinengo. In its garden you can admire a portion of the medieval walls and the white marble obelisk with allegorical figures, carved in 1834 by Giuseppe Croff. The palace now houses municipal offices and, on the ground floor, the interesting Mineral Museum “Fulvio Grazioli”.

Piazza Garibaldi, surrounded by buildings in a sober, classical style, is Sondrio’s main square. Here we find the Teatro Sociale, inaugurated during the Carnival season of 1824, Casa Lambertenghi (1826), the former Bank of Italy building, the Grand Hotel della Posta and the headquarters of the Banca Popolare di Sondrio.

All that remains is to return to the station along Via Vittorio Veneto, where Palazzo Muzio stands, designed by the prominent Milanese architect Giovanni Muzio in 1930 to house the offices of the Province, the Prefecture and the Police Headquarters. The building occupies much of the city block between Via Vittorio Veneto and Corso XXV Aprile, connected by a covered passage and an internal courtyard around which the palace is organised.