The Sacro Monte di Ossuccio on foot from Mezzegra: fourteen chapels and the measured route
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From Isola Comacina, or from the Greenway as it passes through Ossuccio, you can see a line of chapels climbing the hillside among the olive trees. That is the Sacro Monte of the Blessed Virgin of Succour, and from Mezzegra you can walk there without touching the car.
Here is what you need before setting off: the route, measured on the actual track, and what you are looking at up there, from official sources rather than guides that copy each other.
What it is, and why UNESCO lists it
In 2003 UNESCO inscribed the Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy on the World Heritage List: nine groups of chapels built between the late 16th and the 17th century. The model began at Varallo in the late 15th century as an alternative to the Holy Land pilgrimage and spread with the Counter-Reformation, to which Ossuccio belongs. Of the nine on the list, two are in Lombardy, at Varese and at Ossuccio.
The one at Ossuccio is dedicated to the Mysteries of the Rosary. It sits on the mountainside above the village, among meadows, olive groves and woods, directly opposite Isola Comacina. The view opens onto the centre of the lake, towards Bellagio and Varenna.
Fourteen chapels, fifteen mysteries
Online guides disagree on how many chapels there are. Along the climb there are fourteen chapels, built and decorated during the 17th century. The fifteenth mystery, the Coronation of the Virgin, has no chapel of its own: it is inside the sanctuary at the top, which is older than the chapels, since today's church grew out of an earlier chapel that began to be enlarged in 1537. The Lombardy Region's cultural heritage catalogue counts the sanctuary as the fifteenth station: that is why some sources say fourteen and others fifteen.
The order follows the Rosary: five joyful mysteries, from the Annunciation to the Finding in the Temple; five sorrowful, from the Agony in the Garden to the Crucifixion; five glorious, from the Resurrection to the Coronation.
The statues: painted terracotta, mostly life-size
Inside each chapel the scene is made of painted terracotta statues, most of them life-size. They are largely the work of Agostino Silva, a sculptor from Ticino born in Morbio Inferiore in 1628 who died in 1706, and of his workshop; for some chapels the attribution is still uncertain.
The most curious detail cannot be seen from outside. In the fourteenth chapel, the Assumption, there are twenty-two terracotta statues and, according to the regional catalogue record, the inscription «F.co S.va 16 F 65» is carved on the back of one of them: a Francesco Silva who signed it in 1665. He cannot be Francesco, Agostino's father, who died in the early 1640s, nor Agostino's son, Giovanni Francesco, born in 1660: possibly a workshop assistant who has hardly been studied.
From Mezzegra on foot: what the route is like
The walk starts at the residence gate and is 2.5 kilometres long. It is not uphill all the way: the track first goes down, then climbs again, and it passes all fourteen chapels, which begin after the bridge over the Perlana stream. Between the lowest point, at 232 metres, and the sanctuary, at 419, there are 186 metres of difference in height, so there are short uphill stretches on the way back too. The figures are measured on the track and on the elevation model, the same ones as on our hiking page.
For people who do not walk much it is one of the two gentlest climbs starting from here, together with the one to the Alpini chapel above Rogaro: we explain this in the article on choosing your first trail, where the routes are ranked by gradient. We do not give walking times: they depend too much on your pace, and here also on how long you stop at each chapel.
What you will not find in this article
We do not publish the sanctuary's opening times, services or special openings: they follow the liturgical calendar and are announced by whoever runs the sanctuary. At check-in we tell you what the path is like that week.
How it fits into the rest of the day
The Sacro Monte looks down on Isola Comacina, and the two visits fit well into the same day. If you would rather walk with little climbing, head down towards the lake and carry on along the Greenway, which runs through Ossuccio on its way to Sala Comacina. And if you still feel like climbing, higher up the same valley is the Romanesque abbey of San Benedetto in Val Perlana.
In short
- Sacro Monte di Ossuccio: UNESCO World Heritage since 2003, one of the two Sacri Monti in Lombardy on the list
- 14 chapels from the 17th century along the climb, plus the sanctuary holding the fifteenth mystery
- Painted terracotta statues, largely by Agostino Silva and his workshop
- From the residence: 2.5 km on foot, 186 metres between the lowest point (232 m) and the sanctuary (419 m)
- Opening times and services: from the sanctuary, not from this article
