Between 1730 and 1749, right above the granite rock overhanging Lago Maggiore, the splendid Baroque structure dedicated to the Madonna del Sasso was built. Many legends are told about this rock, such as the one about the soldier who, returning home after a mission at the Rocca di Angera, discovered that his wife had betrayed him with an English soldier. Blinded by jealousy, he dragged his wife off and threw her from the spur. But, she saved herself by grabbing on to a tree trunk while he, to save her, jumped into the void. Or the one about the beautiful wife who, facing the violence of Spanish soldiers, preferred to kill herself by throwing herself off the cliff. An earlier chapel dedicated to the Vergine Addolorata (Our Lady of Sorrows) was built on this rock before the present day Sanctuary. The Sanctuary’s interior floor plan is in the form of a Greek cross. Inside, there is a pictorial cycle by Lorenzo Peracino. Above the high altar, is a splendid painting by Fermo Stella da Caravaggio from 1547 which depicts the Deposizione di Cristo (Deposition from the Cross).
