In 1596 the community of Andagna decided to build itself a new and larger church. The works began in 1644, that is nearly fifty years later. In between lies everything you need to understand how these things worked: a decision taken in assembly, and then two generations spent putting the money together.
What to see
Before, there was a church dedicated to saint Martin, dependent on the collegiate church of Triora; by a decree of the bishop of Ventimiglia of 1586 Andagna was detached from it, and from that came the plan for the present building. The front is plain and plastered, with a slate doorway crowned by a pediment and side spirals; the apse, the flanks and the square bell tower are in bare stone.
Inside is a single rectangular nave, with two chapels at the sides of the presbytery and others hollowed out of the thickness of the walls. The geometric and floral decoration is of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, but the important piece is far older: a polyptych of the Annunciation, datable to around 1460, attributed to Emanuele Macario of Pigna or to Giovanni Baleison of Demonte.
Visiting
The church is in piazza Niella, in the hamlet of Andagna, municipality of Molini di Triora, in the upper Argentina valley; it is a parish church and opens for services. Twenty minutes.
Our editors' tip
Look at the chapels dug into the walls and try to judge their depth. In a mountain church the walls are thick to bear the weight of snow and to keep the cold out, and when one more chapel was needed nobody built outwards: they dug into the wall that was already there. The thickness of those walls is the climate, set in stone.