In 397 three Cappadocian missionaries sent by bishop Vigilius to convert the Val di Non — Sisinnius, Martyrius and Alexander — were killed here by the villagers, who still sacrificed to the old gods. The Roman settlement was called Metho; after the killing it took the name of the first of the three, and the Nones dialect wore San Sisinnio down to San Sesen and finally to Sanzeno: the place carries the name of a man its own ancestors had murdered.
The basilica of the Holy Martyrs, begun in 1480 for prince-bishop Johannes Hinderbach over a thirteenth-century church, keeps that memory; at the mouth of the valley the Rhaetian Museum displays the finds from the digs. The town hall does not stand in the village of the same name but in Banco, joined with Casez in 1968.
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📅 Every year, on 29 May
On 29 May Sanzeno, a municipality of 928 inhabitants in the province of Trento, celebrates its patrons Saints Sisinnius, Martyrius and Alexander, to whom the basilica is dedicated.
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 Sanzeno, but an easy day trip away.
