- Art & Culture
Varese UNESCO
4 siti UNESCO, indissolubilmente legati al paesaggio: Monte San Giorgio, Isolino Virginia, Monastero di Torba, Sacro Monte di Varese.
Monte San Giorgio, Isolino Virginia, Monastero di Torba, Sacro Monte di Varese are the 4 places declared a World Heritage Site in our area, inextricably linked to the water and mountain landscapes of the Varese area.
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CASTELSEPRIO E TORBA
The archaeological park of Castelseprio includes a fortified settlement and its village, as well as the nearby church of Santa Maria foris portas and represents one of the most significant testimonies of the early Middle Ages in northern Italy.
The Torba Monastery, managed by the FAI - Fondo Ambiente Italiano, is part of the same archaeological complex. The monastic complex was built in the late Roman Empire with a defensive function and was later used by the Goths, Byzantines and Lombards. It was precisely under the Lombard kingdom that it took on a civil and, later, a religious function which it maintained until the Napoleonic era. The two places are part of the UNESCO serial site "Longobards in Italy. The places of power 568-774 AD."
An inter-university research project kicked off in 2021 in Castelseprio: the universities of Padua, Chieti and Milan invest their best resources to investigate this symbolic site of European medieval research.
Would you like to know more? Visit www.monasteroditorba.it
ISOLINO VIRGINIA
Isolino Virginia is the oldest settlement among those that are part of the serial site "Prehistoric pile-dwelling sites in the Alpine arc", which includes a total of 111 settlements dating from 5000 to 500 BC, located on the shores of lakes or rivers in Switzerland , Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Slovenia.
he little island Virginia, located in Lake Varese opposite Biandronno, was inhabited from the early Neolithic (VII-VI millennium BC) until the end of the Bronze Age (about 10th century BC), a long period in which man , in order to be able to cope with the changes in the waters of the lake, he often had to adapt or move his homes, occupying different places on the island from time to time. It can be reached with a short navigation from Biandronno, on Saturdays and Sundays: a poetic place that you will never forget.
IL SACRO MONTE DI VARESE
Part of the serial site "The sacred mountains of Piedmont and Lombardy" the Sacro Monte di Varese is a devotional complex erected on Mount Velate between 1604 and 1698, as a work of popular evangelization aimed at celebrating the dogmas of the Catholic Church against the spread of Protestant Reformation.
The itinerary for pilgrims consists of a Via Sacra about 2 kilometers long with 14 chapels that illustrate and invite meditation on the mysteries of the Holy Rosary and ends in the Sanctuary of Santa Maria del Monte which serves as the fifteenth chapel. Triumphal arches and fountains mark the route, a splendid example of integration and harmony between sacred art, architecture and the surrounding natural landscape. There are 3 museum spaces in the village, open to visits: the Baroffio and Sanctuary Museum, the Sanctuary Crypt, the Pogliaghi House Museum.
Want to know more: visit www.sacromontedivarese.it
MONTE SAN GIORGIO
Monte San Giorgio, straddling the Italian-Swiss border in the municipalities of Porto Ceresio, Viggiù, Clivio, Besano is surrounded by two branches of Lake Lugano.
It is the most important deposit in the world of Middle Triassic fossils: ichthyosaurs, fish, aquatic plants of what was the sea of Besano, about 240 million years ago.
The paleontological heritage is kept in the civic museum of fossils in Besano. The mountain offers excursion routes of naturalistic and panoramic interest.
The Mount was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2003 for the Swiss side and in 2010 for the Italian one.
Would you like to know more? Visit www.montesangiorgio.org
