The church of San Donnino Martire is the parish church of Cavaglio, the first village of the Valle Cannobina for those climbing up from Cannobio — an arrival that is half the experience in itself, across a bridge suspended some hundred metres above the Cannobino stream. The first building dates from the fourteenth century; enlarged and rebuilt in 1473, the church was consecrated in 1517, and its final completion came in the eighteenth century.
What to see
The gabled facade, facing north-west, is plain: two lateral pilasters, a portal sheltered by a small canopy, a window above. A few metres away, in the middle of the churchyard, stands the square-based bell tower with its Romanesque look, survivor of the medieval complex, a single-light opening on each side of the belfry and a four-pitched roof. Inside, a single nave with side chapels on round arches, pilasters carrying the entablature and the vault, a raised presbytery closed by the apse; among paintings of note and marble altars stands out the altarpiece of Saint Donninus Martyr by Amedeo Patrizi.
Visiting
The date that changed the church's destiny is 1574: that year Saint Charles Borromeo, on pastoral visit in the valley, raised it to parish church, freeing it from the pieve of San Vittore in Cannobio. The parish at first also included the village of Gurrone, which broke away in its turn in 1619 — even in so narrow a valley, bell towers have always wanted to count for themselves.
Our editors' tip
A short walk from the village is the oratory of the Madonna delle Grazie, known as "del Rj": it keeps a stone in which tradition recognises the footprint of Christ. It is worth the stop for the place alone, and to grasp how much devotion has layered itself around a village that today counts a few dozen houses.