La Church of St Martin, located in Via Stelvio near Villa di Tirano, is a historical building currently closed for worship. It is believed to have been built in 17th century on an ancient structure, possibly a cemetery of plague victims.
Missing architecture and furnishings
The church presents a noble facade, restored in the 1970s, with an arched gable, curved and rectangular windows and a green stone portal. The interior, with a single nave, is today completely bare. In the past, it housed a high altar with a carved and gilded wooden tabernacle and a painting of St Martin. To the left of the nave was the altar of St Gotthard with a painting of the bishop. Also a small 18th-century pulpit walnut wood has disappeared. A restored piece of furniture from the 19th century remains in the sacristy.
L’ossuary adjoining, whose façade reproduces that of the church in miniature, once contained bones and skulls for admonitory purposes, as well as votive tablets for graces received; these elements have also disappeared today.
Past uses and attempts at restoration
The Church of San Martino has had various uses over the centuries: it was a plague shelter in 1632 and a lazaretto during the “Spanish” in 1918. Until the 1950s, every first Sunday in May, mass was celebrated there and on the esplanade the Festival of St Gotthard, famous for the “red pipe”, a sugar cake in the shape of a pipe.
In the second half of the 1970s, the church underwent major restoration work ordered by Fr Virginio Zubiani with the intention of reopening it for worship. The roof of the church and ossuary were redone, the stained glass windows were replaced, the channelling was positioned, the main façade was painted, the main door repaired and the external fountain replaced. Inside, the cornice and the electrical system were redone and the floor slabs were placed.
Despite all these efforts, however, the Church of San Martino has not been reopened to the public.
