Before the Sacro Macello of 1620 Berbenno had an evangelical congregation, which met in the church of Sant'Abbondio at Polaggia. Only five names of its Reformed ministers are known, and the last is Jörg Jenatsch: the same man who was shortly to become the Grisons war leader of the Thirty Years' War, first against the Spanish and then against the French, one of the most unscrupulous figures of his century. The village that had him as its pastor lost its Protestant community in those years, and saw the church by the castle of Roccascissa laid waste as well.
Four thousand three hundred and eight inhabitants in the province of Sondrio, on the Rhaetian slope that overlooks the valley of the Adda. The name is said to come from Celtic roots meaning plain and bear: the plain of the bears. Vines are grown on terraces with gradients ranging from twenty to sixty per cent, on barely twenty-five hectares still worked almost entirely by hand, and they yield the Maroggia wine. At Maroggia, Saint Benigno de' Medici lived until his death in 1472; for his good looks they called him Bello, and his fair is still held on the twelfth of February. In the old parish church of San Pietro is the only palaeochristian inscription in the Valtellina.
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📅 Every year, on 12 February, with the Sagra di San Bello
In Berbenno di Valtellina, Saint Benignus is celebrated on 12 February with a popular fair known as the Sagra di San Bello.
📅 Every year, on 15 August
Berbenno di Valtellina celebrates Our Lady of the Assumption on 15 August, in the Church of the Beata Vergine Assunta.
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Outside Berbenno di Valtellina, but an easy day trip away.
