Collegiate Church of Santi Gervasio e Protasio

DESCRIPTION:
Located on the main square of the town, the church is the oldest religious building in Bormio. It was mentioned for the first time in a certificate of Emperor Lothair dating from 824.  Over the years, the church has been modified and renovated numerous times. The current structure is mainly the result of a rebuilding project by Gaspare Aprile from Lugano, which was completed in 1641. This was necessary after the church was burned by the Spanish in 1621, during the religious wars that involved even Bormio. The spacious interior of the church has numerous frescoes, some dating from 1393, and features eight side chapels. A few of these contain insignias with the crests of noble families from Bormio that were once the chapels’ patrons. Specifically, the patrons of the second chapel on the left were the Alberti, whose family tomb is located just in front of the wooden altar. At the centre of the chancel there is a large painting by the artist Carlo Marni, which is used during Lent to cover the seventeenth century organ. The church also contains contemporary works of art, including the bronze altar in the chancel, the work of a sculptor from Como named Gianluigi Giudici, and a wooden altarpiece dedicated to Pope John Paul II, created by a sculptor from Bormio known as “Spatola”.