Grosotto

The sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin of Graces was begun in 1487 to give thanks for a danger escaped: the Grisons had threatened to destroy the village, and did not. Three years later it was already consecrated, though in the seventeenth century it was rebuilt from scratch; inside there is a barrel vault frescoed by the Valtellina painter Eliseo Fumagalli and an eighteenth-century organ with a carved wooden case. Of the medieval village, on the other hand, little is left: it was sacked and burned more than once.

What has lasted at Grosotto are the everyday things. In front of casa Stoppani stands the fountain and washhouse known as the one of the four spouts, of 1695. In via Molini the Osmetti mill still works, the only one left of about ten that were grinding in the area until 1950: its three granite millstones have been turning since 1868. There is also an eighteenth-century lever wine press, in use until the mid-seventies, and in front of the parish house an old pillory has remained. Higher up, on the mountains, are the reinforced-concrete anti-aircraft posts and gun emplacements built as a second line of defence during the Great War.