The church of San Nicola da Bari stands on piazza San Bernardino, which at Rondanina is simply the square: the town hall, the mountain refuge and the museum of flora and fauna all open onto it. It was rebuilt towards the end of the thirteenth century on the remains of an older Romanesque building, of which something is still there inside today's structure.
What to see
The interior has three naves, with vault and walls covered by polychrome decoration carried out after the eighteenth-century rebuilding. The high altar and the balustrade are marble, from the middle of the eighteenth century, and above the altar hangs a wooden crucifix. The inlaid wooden pulpit is the work of local craftsmen. At the end of the right-hand nave, the altar of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary, decorated in 1762, holds a Madonna and Child.
Visiting
Above the doorway, in a niche, is a small statue of the titular saint: it is the first detail you notice as you reach the square. The tall bell tower was partly rebuilt and raised in 1783. The communities of Fascia once depended on this parish too, until they broke away in 1647 to become parishes of their own.
Our editors' tip
Out of two rebuildings, the thirteenth-century one and the eighteenth-century one, something of the original Romanesque building survived: it is the oldest thing in Rondanina, and it is worth looking for.