The Churches

The Church of St. George in Cislano, according to the Papal Bulls issued between 1126 and 1175, the Century of the Crusades, was the first Parish Church of Zone. Already existing therefore in the 12th century and restored in the 1400s, it was a parish church until the 1500s. What remains of the original construction are three Romanesque capitals…….

Inside, with three naves, there are two altars: the one on the left, of Saints Stephen and Bernardino, is dated 1478, the one on the right is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. What places this Church among the most appreciated buildings of Sebino are the numerous frescoes. These are works dating back to the late 1400s and the early decades of the 1500s and are, for the most part, attributed to Giovanni da Marone, a Brescian artist of the early Renaissance. Notable on the outside is the fresco of St. George on a white steed in the act of killing the dragon, and the gigantic portrait of St. Christopher invoked against the plague.

Abandoning the small church of St. George and heading to Zone, about five hundred meters on the right, there is a small country chapel reached by a path flanked by the Stations of the Cross: the 15th-century Church of Saints Hippolytus and Cassian. It initially served as shelter for travelers and pilgrims who went towards Valtrompia and upper Sebino. In the 1400s it was also a school for the children of the growing rural population, but at the end of that century it was consecrated to Worship. It is very rich in frescoes, some in Giottesque style, contains paintings of the Ferramola school and also the statue of the Virgin attributed to Pietro Ramus, and the statues of the patron saints, placed here in the 1600s. The portal is made of Sarnico stone, the facade is very similar to that of the hermitage of San Pietro in Marone, while the interior, with a single nave, houses frescoes and wooden statues of Saints Hippolytus and Cassian.

In Zone center, in Piazza Giuseppe Almici, we find the 18th-century octagonal chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin of Lourdes; also in Piazza Almici, the Parish Church of St. John the Baptist appears in local historiography from the 16th century, when it replaced the medieval church of St. George in Cislano as parish church. The first parish building, completed in the 1580s, soon proved insufficient, so Mons. Giustiniani, bishop of Brescia, decreed a new enlargement in 1637. Although, as historian Don Alessandro Sina (1941) recalls, scarce documentary notes do not allow a precise reconstruction of the various architectural phases, the refined decorations still visible inside the church demonstrate how carefully the ancient pastors followed the work. Among these, a special mention goes to the Camunian Don Bartolomeo Belotti (1674-1714), to whom the most important commissions for the setup of the three main altars of the temple are owed, for which, among others, the sculptors Fantoni from Rovetta and the Brescian painter Francesco Paglia were called. The rectors after Belotti were engaged throughout the 1700s and beyond in completing the choir, adorned by a finely worked marble altar, and the vault, entrusted to the Isean painter Domenico Voltolini (1666-1746), author also of the frescoes, now very damaged, of the octagonal chapel adjacent to the church (since the early 1900s a Marian Sanctuary). Inside you can admire: the wonderful sculptural group of the “Lamentation over the Dead Christ” (1690-1691) composed of ten statues and four painted wooden putti, last work made by Andrea Fantoni (1659-1734) for the church of Zone; the main altar, which represents one of the grandest and most complex undertakings of the Rovetta woodcarvers, was made by Andrea Fantoni between 1685 and 1689. In the center of the wooden frame you can admire the “Nativity of the Baptist” by Francesco Paglia.

S. John

-The Church of the Madonna del Disgiöl, 18th-century, was built on a cliff almost in the center of the Urbes valley, along a well-preserved stretch of the Via Valeriana. At the origin of its construction there is an “ex-gratia” for escaping danger from a landslide, which legend says was blocked by the hand of the Virgin Mary.

-The Church of St. Anthony Abbot, located in the hamlet of Cusato, was originally the chapel of the Antonite friars; an internal pillar bears the year of consecration, 1581. Some frescoes inside are by Voltolini from Iseo, who lived in the 18th century.