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Church of the Blessed Serafino in Chiuso
The good curate of Fermo and Lucia
The church of S. Giovanni Battista is located in the district of Chiuso in Lecco. It is also known as the church of the Blessed Serafino because the priest Don Serafino Morazzone (1773-1822), who was beatified in 2011, lived and was buried here. His figure is much revered by the inhabitants of Chiuso and not only. The church is therefore a pilgrimage destination as well as a treasure chest of precious artistic treasures and literary suggestions. Don Serafino was in fact confessor of Alessandro Manzoni, who, admiring the holy life of this priest, made it a model of virtue exalted in the first draft of the Promessi Sposi, the Fermo and Lucia. The single-nave architectural structure and the gabled façade reveal the Romanesque origins of the church.
The ceiling of the only nave is trussed while the presbytery has a barrel vault decorated with an almond-shaped Christ Pantocrator and the four Doctors of the Church in the chair. On the back wall is instead represented a Crucifixion full of characters. The frescoes are from the fifteenth century, attributed to Pietro da Cemmo or the Baschenis brothers. In the 17th century the church was restored and a sandstone balustrade was added to the presbytery and a cross vault in the sacristy. In the nineteenth century, on the death of Don Serafino, the inhabitants made a chapel to the right of the nave to place the remains of the curate, who already had a reputation for holiness. During the century, the façade and the bell tower underwent further modifications.
