The sanctuary of the Santo Crocifisso in Desio, on via Lampugnani, is a Neo-Gothic church designed by the engineer Spirito Maria Chiappetta and consecrated on 26 July 1913 by Cardinal Andrea Ferrari, archbishop of Milan. It stands on the site of the old oratory of San Bartolomeo, already mentioned in the thirteenth century by Goffredo da Bussero; in 1570 the confraternity of the Holy Crucifix was founded there, and in 1596 the presence of the crucifix is recorded. In the early twentieth century, as the population grew, the oratory was no longer large enough, and in 1912 work began on the present sanctuary.
What to see
The high altar, in polychrome marble in Neo-Gothic taste, encloses the late sixteenth-century Crucifix, an object of popular devotion: in 1948 Cardinal Ildefonso Schuster crowned it, fulfilling the vow made by the people of Desio for protection from bombing. In the apse Alberto Bogani, a painter from Como, depicted the seven sacraments; the Madonna and the Saint Joseph at the ends of the side aisles are also his. The two altars at the sides of the crossing are dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Saint Francis of Assisi.
Other works include a seventeenth-century canvas of Saint Bartholomew and an Ecce Homo in the Caravaggesque manner from the end of the same century, as well as many ex-votos. The bell tower, about thirty metres high to its copper spire, has five bells cast in 1948 by the Ottolina foundry of Seregno.
Visiting
The sanctuary's feast is now celebrated on the Sunday of Christ the King, which falls between 5 and 11 November. Mass times should be checked with the parish.
Our editors' tip
The feast was originally held on 11 May, in memory of the rain that fell in 1817 after a procession with the crucifix at the end of a long drought; later moved to the fourth Sunday of October as a thanksgiving for the farming year, it came with a much-awaited lottery whose first prize was traditionally a piglet.
