Amaretto has carried Saronno's name to every continent, but the town's masterpiece is in a dome. The sanctuary of the Beata Vergine dei Miracoli is a building site of first-rank names: the lantern tower was designed in 1505 by Giovanni Antonio Amadeo, the man of the Certosa di Pavia, with stone a mason from Osteno quarried and sent all the way here; in the dome Gaudenzio Ferrari painted the «Concert of Angels», dozens of musicians in flight, among the most joyful pages of the Lombard Renaissance; and Bernardino Luini worked here twice, the last time in 1531, from the apse to the screen. The bell tower is forty-seven metres high.
The oldest church, though, is San Francesco, of the late thirteenth century, which tradition traces to a passage of Saint Anthony of Padua on his way to Varese: it is a national monument. The rest of the town was made by trains. Saronno is a historic junction of the Ferrovie Nord, and in the old sheds where steam locomotives were overhauled there is a railway museum, now closed for works. From here it is half an hour to the Duomo in Milan, or to Como, or to Malpensa, and the Swiss border is twenty-five kilometres away. A crossroads with far more art than it admits to.
Chiesa di San Francesco · Chiesa di Sant'Antonio Abate · Palazzo Visconti and 2 more
Risotto alla Milanese
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Next up: Saints Peter and Paul, patrons of the collegiate church that holds a crucifix carried in procession, Tuesday 29 June
Nearest airport: Milano Malpensa, 24 km away
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📅 Every year, on 29 June
Saronno celebrates Saints Peter and Paul on 29 June; the collegiate church dedicated to them, built in 1783, holds a crucifix carried in procession every year during the feast of the Trasporto, and has the bell tower of the town's largest church.
Chiesa di San Francesco Saronno's old parish church, passed to the Franciscans, with frescoes by the Legnani and by Luini's sons. Chiesa di Sant'Antonio Abate Saronno's fourteenth-century church, tied to the plague of 1576 and to the feast of Saint Anthony on 17 Januar Palazzo Visconti The sixteenth-century palace that was Saronno's town hall, the «Municipi Vècc», unused since the fire of 2007. Santuario della Beata Vergine dei Miracoli Saronno's Renaissance sanctuary, with Amadeo's lantern tower and frescoes by Luini and Gaudenzio Ferrari. Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Saronno, but an easy day trip away.
