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PRESENTATION OF THE PROJECT
NEW LIFE FOR OLD WALLS
The place that is hosting us today is very characteristic regarding its settlement, structure and environment and
is undoubtedly very charming thanks to the fact that it has maintained over a long period of time of ups and
downs up to our days its peculiar characteristic of being a special and “separated” place, a “small world” as the
latest affectionate publication calls it.
It owes its charm to some special elements that have marked its history, that are still existing and vital and that
deserve to be conserved through the efforts of the whole human community.
A schematic but realistic simplification indicates these distinctive elements in the following:
-the peculiarity of the structure that, built in different periods, forced into different use not always congruent with
its intended use, has maintained its fascination and charm which it owes partly to its being located in a
protected conservation area; these characteristics have never disappeared in the course of the centuries and
have originated a steadily exerted use-value well preserved in people’s memories,
-the strong sense of belonging that people living in the San Martino Valley territory have always felt towards the
sanctuary, not only for reasons we strictly speaking call devotional, but also related to moments of everyday life
and important events in life (weddings, funerals, festivals, festivities, fairs).
-its ability to receive different and even disparate habitations (from the hermits who built it to the being run by
the Servites and to its significance for the faithful of all parishes in the territory) and its ability to activate
synergies and sometimes important private investments in more recent times, from its reopening after the
desaster caused by the Second World War to forces and synergies employed in occasion of its recent
restoration,
-its ability to offer to be an experimental laboratory for abilities and techniques in which all seemed to resume
work where others had had to quit.
It is because of these peculiarities that continously come up in the life of this building complex that I deem a
short excursion into its history is useful; our project is in ideal continuity with the history.
1) The history
The old monastery of the Friar Servants of Mary, the Servites, and the church dedicated to Santa Maria del
Lavello is situated on the left bank of the river Adda where, in ancient times, the rapid stream slackened its
speed and it was possible to ford from one bank to the other.
In about the year 1000 a castle was built there to defend the ford. Around it there was a small village where
fishermen and peasants lived. In the interior land a road ran linking Bergamo to Como and to the Alpine
passes.
By the castle there was the small church of San Simpliciano which would later be dedicated to Our Lady. That
humble little church had only one nave measuring eight times four and a half meters and had a painted altar.
In all likelyhood this castle and this church mattered in the 12th century battles between the Lombard
communes and the Empire. Without fail we know that in the first half of the 13th century the Lavello was under
the jurisdiction of the commune of Bergamo.
Towards the end of the century the castle was destroyed during the battles led by Bernabò Visconti which
devastated the plain of the Lavello, and the village shrunk to a very meagre community. The Peace of Lodi in
1454 established that the two banks of the river Adda be the definite frontier between the Duchy of Milan and
the Republic of Venice.
Some hermits took shelter among the ruins of the ancient buildings near the rustic chapel still there in 1438. Of
one of them, by the name of Jacopino, is said that after receiving a Divine order he began to build a bigger
church. In April 1480, while the church was under construction, a spring gushed out under an ancient grave.
The news spread very quickly and not long after a mother took her completely paralized child to that spring.
She washed him in the spring and all those present were amazed at seeing him walk thereafter. Immediately
people began to pilgrimage to that place which became so widely known that in about the year 1486 some
friars Servants of Mary came from Bergamo and helped in building the new church.
The church was consecrated four years later, in 1490, and the magnificent ceremony celebrated by a deputy of
the Archdiocese of Milan saw the presence of all nobles as well as of the common people of the San Martino
valley. Not later than in 1493 an important fair took place at the Lavello. About 1,000 ducats were collected.
In 1510 the friars began to build the monastery as we see it today .
With time the friars received land in donation. The land yielded a lot and thus it was possible to start new works
– two dormitories, a refectory, new porticoes and new sections of the cloister were built. At the same time,
more and more news about miraculous events circulated. A great number of people came. Very soon the old
church was not big enough to hold the faithful. Thus, towards the end of the 16th century, the nave was
enlarged with two identical prebyteries and a double altar. That was when the church became its today’s size.
The invasion of the landsknechts in 1629, who devastated the area, put an end to a long time of prosperity.
The plague which brought misery on both sides of the river Adda struck the small community hard – the
monastery was turned into a lazaret and all the friars died because of their giving care and attention to those
afflicted with plague.
After this terribile scourge other friars had to rebuild the church and the monastery and brought to the surface
again frescoes that had been covered through whitewashing and smoke. The structure was enlarged. The way
up was slow and laborious. Thanks to the expansion and refurbishment works, a new period of prosperity
th
began and lasted all through the 18 century. The fairs that took place at the Lavello during the year were
always crowded and the properties ensured good income.
But in 1772 a decree of the Venetian Senate ordered the suppression of the convent and the friars Servants of
Mary left it permanently. It became bone of contention between priests and noblemen who claimed rights to
the building.
Over the years many attempts were made to revitalize the monastery, with mixed fortunes and little hope to
bring it back to its former glory. The last offence to the monastery was inflicted by the enemy armies in World
War II. Only in September 1948 the church could be opened again, and this was the first step in a long
restitution process that has now been completed.
2) The restoration
Thanks to the restoration, the structure of the monastery appears now just like the original one, that was built
between the fifteenth and the sixteenth century. The complex consists of three principal bodies connected by
two internal courtyards.
One of the major works consisted in the restoration of the external rendering of the buildings which documents
the history of the structure with graffiti, dates and residuals of superpositions and succeeding work.
The entire development of the main wing behind the church is the outcome of the renovation of the monastery
which began in 1566. This is when the pantry, the kitchen, the chapter house, the refectory and finally the
main courtyard were built.
The restoration works also uncovered a fresco in a lunette of the portico and vestiges of a sundial on the outer
wall. Moreover, while removing walls of more recent construction, a staircase was uncovered of whose
existence nobody knew and which lead to the prior’s residence. In the spaces that separate the two courtyards,
roof truss beams were found and left unplastered; these truss beams were the substructure of the monastery’s
roof in the 17th century and help in understanding the evolution of the building.The inside of the church we see
today is the outcome of the superposition of three succeeding constructions and enlargments the last of which
began in 1582 and designed its current structure.
The exterior is broken up by the pilaster strips of the buttresses and the terra cotta cornice as the traditional
practice in monastery churches was. The lateral pointed arch marble portal dates from 1490.
In the interior there are still fragments of decorations of the church which had begun construction in 1486.
The northern chapel whose walls have remains of the castle built in 1014, has a big fresco of the Cruxifixion
most likely painted by Giovanni De Tornelli in 1487.
In 1597 the painter Domenico Scaretti from Pontida painted stories of the Virgin on the triumphal arch but there
are only few friezes of it left because the ancient fresco was covered in 1948 with a modern painting of Our
Lady of Peace.
The chapel at the center of the northern wall, inaugurated towards the end of the 16th century, with its fine faux
marble decorations ends in the rear with a lunette showing Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Also the
paintings in the two apses date from that period.
The decoration as it appears today dates back to two phases of the 17th century. The lower part is the result of
a renovation after the plague in 1630, precisely in 1638, that changed also the faces of some saints. The pulpit
and several oil paintings are of the Baroque period, the inlaid marble altars and the altar curtains of stucco
marble were made in the 18th century and are contemporaneous with the creation of the loggia along the
western wall above the main entrance.
The works executed in the interior of the church first restored the frescoes and paint decorations; the restoring
of the floor was completed only later, in 2005. The archeological excavations brought out the structure of the
medieval cult complex. Notable is the extraordinarily well preserved altar with part of its rhomboidal ornaments.
The restoration then also brought out the remains of what most likely was the old miraculous spring and its
complex system of basins.
3) Present function
The restoration of the building complex Santa Maria del Lavello was carried through within the European
project RECITE II “N.C.E. – Network Culture Economy”, which at the same time made it possible to restore the
monasteries of Buch in Saxony (Germany) and Güssing in the Burgenland (Austria). The project promoted by
the Lecco Provincial Administration was also supported by the Lecco Chamber of Commerce, the Government
of Lombardy, the town of Calolziocorte , the Mountain Society of the San Martino valley and the Foppenico
parish.
The three monastery complexes of Buch, Güssing and S. Maria del Lavello are among the destinations of an
international tourist route, the ‘Cloister Route’, inviting to visit and to become acquainted with these three
territories in Europe.
These sites are symbols of the European identity, they speak of the tapestry of history and at the same time
testify the common cultural and spiritual roots.
At present the historical complex is assigned to the Foundation Monastero di Santa Maria del Lavello; this
foundation was established by the Region of Lombardy, the county of Lecco, the town of Calolziocorte, the
mountain societies Lake of Como East and San Martino valley and the diocese of Bergamo in concert. Among
its statutory objectives are the care and enhancement of the complex, promotion of culture and tourism and the
development and extension of the net of local and international actors at different levels and in different areas.
Its impressive exhibition and congress areas as well as its facilities for receptions and residence make it a
unique place inviting to rest and to relax body, spirit and mind at the borderline between the districts of Lecco
and Bergamo.
But being also a location for the community it opens to involving and receiving contributions from all those
who sincerely care to study and elaborate on themes concerning the maintenance, the conservation and
enhancement of historical sites.
Immediately after the building complex was restored and available again for its devotion and reception function
it clearly showed that the priority work to be done by the Foundation was to procure a simple, efficient but at
the same time scientifically tested tool to start planned maintenance. Conservation will thus no longer be an
episodic approach but become an imperative and frequent activity based on a “coordinated, coherent and
planned activity of research, prevention, maintenance and restoration” (Code of the Cultural Heritage). At the
same time though, using the location some critical points were detected mainly concerning work on the church
plasters and underground spaces; these two latter require to adopt a planned maintenance programme and
first experimentation in order to limit damage caused by the interaction with the natural environment and use.
Above considerations are at the base of our project which we have decided to entitle “New life for old walls”, in
harmony with the site’s peculiarity and resources.
THE PLANNED CONSERVATION PROJECT USING INNOVATIVE METHODOLOGIES
1. What we want to do
The project is meant to achieve goals which intersect at various intervention levels:
 As to the approach to a scientific system of planned maintenance: the project counts to make property
conservation specialists intervene in order to detect the phenomena of deterioration due to different
reaction of the plaster to the restoration activities carried out, and to determine the causes thereof in order
to monitor the conservation state of the building, to foresee how it will evolve and to protect the
archeological finds in the sanctuary’s underground spaces.
 As to the use of innovative technologies and processes at the different stages of the project: avantgard
innovative techniques will be used to monitor the environmental and structural parameters and a chemical
and physical characterization of the material will be carried out so that the intervention is aimed at
optimizing the property from a conservational as well as economical point of view. Involving the Milan
Politecnico and the CNR (National Research Center) not only makes it possible to compare experiences
gathered in similar problems at high experimental level but also to transfer the knowledge of the
methodologies employed to who will operate in this field in the future.
 As to involving people: building a qualified work team to be the “steering committee of the project” right
from the beginning and the place of stable capitalization of the outcome of the interventions, to provide for
the monitoring of the employed techniques and for safe and up-to-date proficiency regarding present and
future intervention for the planned maintenance of the property in order to increment the “sustenaible”
fruition of spaces. In an early stage the work team will consist of the Milan Politecnico, some CNR-experts
and technicians of the Administrations involved in the project (Provincial Administration, Calolziocorte Town
Administration). There will also be a training activity which will furthermore allow to get voluntary groups
involved which already work in the territory (Parish volunteers, volunteers of the “Calolziocorte Tourist
Town” group as well as the volunteers to whom the “Bricklayer Museum’ in the near community of
Carenno owes its opening and which is a junction of the Ecomuseum just like the Lavello complex.
2. How we want to do it
The diagnostic campaign will allow to establish the causes of deterioration and to identify the points with the
highest risk because of intrinsic characteristics of the building, and then to optimize all following action of
preventive maintenance. In the underground space the diagnostic campaign will have to check the current
state of airing and afterwards the designing and installing of ventilator/extractor prototypes.
The examination will use instrumental methods in order to perform the chemical and mineralogical
characterization of the material, and samples will be taken and studied in a laboratory. From the scientific point
of view the field of application of the expected results is very broad; at local level the importance lies in
exporting knowledge regarding materials, techniques and climatic conditions of the River Adda area.
Furthermore, strategic sharing of the project evolution with all parties interacting with the Foundation activity
and with the groups of qualified volunteers on the territory (Calolziocorte sights, the Bricklayer Museum at
Carenno) will be important.
3. What we expect to achieve
1) a planned maintenance programme which will allow to use all information obtained through the material
analysis and the monitoring systems put into operation to carry out all necessary works promptly and
effectively. The Planned Maintenance Handbook will allow to activate a permanent virtuous cycle of
conservation of the property based on:
 Diagnostics not as an “una tantum” operation but as a periodic check activity of the state of conservation
and of the causes of deterioration risk and as the determination of preventive action to limit risk situations;
 Monitoring as a systematic check activity of the state of the broader building complex;
 Cyclic planned maintenance in order to guarantee that this property so deeply rooted in the local identity
and which has become in these recent years the destination of more and more Italian and foreign pilgrims
and visitors be conserved.
2) Sharing of priorities and schedules regarding necessary operations among the various parties who interact
in the planning of the property conservation. Considering that the building complex of the Lavello Sanctuary
and Monastery has several parties interacting (the Foundation, The Province of Lecco Administration, The
Bergamo Diocese, the Calolziocorte Town Administration, the manager of the reception facilities) which all
have different roles as far as managing and conservation of the buildings are concerned, the diagnostics and
the working-out of a planned maintenance handbook will allow to coordinate the efforts, to plan the use of
resources, to share time tables and methodologies, to avoid overlapping and to pursue synergy among
different projects.
3) Intervention on some cloister plasters by implementing a “pilot workshop” which will allow to test the
techniques indicated by the outcome of the analysis and the monitoring of the building complex. The opening of
a pilot workshop designed to offer a first response on the building plasters will allow to try out a more consistent
approach to the property’s environmental conditions. It will be necessary to reckon with the different reaction of
the plasters to the previous operations. This will be done by employing innovative techniques with the
possibility to capitalize this experience also for the treatment of the other plasters of the building complex and
to socialize the outcome by making them available for other buildings having similar problems.
4) Developing proficiency and consciousness through training in the volunteers that gravitate towards the
building complex and offer different abilities.
The feeling of belonging that local people have towards the sanctuary made it possible to arouse the interest
for the intervention to be performed in groups of volunteers with specific knowledge who are willing to make
their knowledge available in a well structured context supervising the state of conservation of the building
complex. These volunteers belong to the “Calolziocorte Tourist Town” association, to the management team of
the nearby “Bricklayer Museum” at Carenno and to the Foppenico Parish group.
5) Restitution to the public of a historical and religious property which the local community is particularly
involved with, and at the same time restitution of this property with improved usability and visibility to the Italian
and international tourism which is steadily increasing.
5) Which alliances to implement the project
Right from the beginning when the Foundation was thinking of implementing the project its members were very
well aware of the fact that there was no way to implement this necessary and ambitious project by their
strength alone.
Studying the funding opportunities announcements of the Cariplo Foundation for cultural interventions allowed
us not only to identify a possible and prestigious financing channel but also, during the elaboration phase of the
project, to clarify the priority areas for intervention , the need to have simple sharing tools to put the project into
effect as well as the opportunity to take advantage of the occasion to project a system of cyclic interventions as
vademecum available to the building complex and the Foundation.
It needs to be said that the project received immediate collaboration and great willingness from the Foundation
members. This induced the Calolziocorte Town Administration to improve the area adjacent to the building
complex and the Provincial Administration to give big financial support and this, in spite of the hard times for
public finances, allowed a 50% - co-financing of the expected costs.
It is also of importance to name the local support we found among the various parties that will interact in the
project:
the Foppenico Parish volunteers who have maintained the usability of the property also in not easy recent and
past times by overcoming a lot of difficulties with their personal help;
-the volunteers of the “Calolziocorte Tourist Town” association who have been working with the Foundation for
a long time doing all routine works which give evidence of their care and attention;
-the association that runs the “Bricklayer Museum” of Carenno whose proficiency regarding traditional
techniques provides added value in the identification of the most suitable solutions to the problems the building
complex is struck by.
We owe special mention to the collaboration with the Politecnico in laying down the project; immediately the
engineers have adhered to the project thanks to the good offices and personal helpfulness of professor
Elisabetta Rosina; she was successful in involving professionals who not only are highly qualified and full of
desire to do experimentation and research, but some of them also have previous experience in intervention on
the complex; thus, knowledge is capitalized and the intervention will have the added value of continuity.
An unexpected and not perfectly planned but fruitful and important evolution during this year of planning has
been the fact that students at the Politecnico have been involved in several didactic projects, studies and
research concerning the building complex and the monastery area – this workshop in fact is a first ripe fruit of
those activities.
Our hope is that one or more of them will be interested in further developing these studies and write a
graduation thesis on the Lavello Monastery thus competing for the assignment of a scholarship which the
Foundation announces each year to foster research and in-depth examination of the building complex.
It was our deliberate decision to link the first public presentation of our project to this workshop in order to
establish synergy right from the beginning. This will allow us to establish contacts that will bring into life a
“tradition” in its etymological sense by integrating the simpler meaning of “defense” and “conservation” with the
more dynamic and motivating meaning of handing over to “the new generations” what the fathers, with great
efforts, have handed down to us and what our efforts can hand over “alive” to the coming generations.
March 3rd , 2012
FONDAZIONE MONASTERO DI S. M ARIA DEL LAVELLO
Via Padri Serviti, 1 - 23801 Calolziocorte (LC) – Tel.0341 1590101 - fax 0341 1590102
E-mail: [email protected] – [email protected]
Web: www.fondazionelavello.org C.F. 92045050132 – P. IVA 03197070133