Chiesa in Valmalenco

The village is called Chiesa, church, because for centuries it was the church. In a valley inhabited in scattered clusters at different altitudes, the building of Santi Giacomo e Filippo, recorded between the eleventh and the twelfth century, was the one point where the whole Valmalenco came together: the assemblies of the hamlets were held there, and there the religious, administrative and political business of the valley was settled. People called it Ecclesia, la Glesia, la Gésa, and from that common noun came the proper name of the municipality. Oddly, the independent parish arrived late, only in 1624, and the municipality later still, in 1816.

Between the sixteenth and the eighteenth century the valley was ruled by the Grisons, with religious tensions that culminated in the Valtellina revolt of 1620, and the population grew. The nineteenth century added to farming, forestry and mining a new calling, alpine tourism, which in the twentieth became the main one: the Palù ski area for skiing and snowboarding, and the Alta via della Valmalenco, an eight-day crossing between Monte Disgrazia, the Bernina massif and the Scalino group. On 4 June 1988 the village was a stage finish of the Giro d'Italia: the winner was the Swiss rider Tony Rominger.