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CASTIGLIONE ALONA
AND CASTELSEPRIO |
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One of the best excursions you can make from Varese is to
CASTIGLIONE OLONA , a Renaissance-style village just twenty minutes by
bus from Varese's Piazza Kennedy (#B45), built by Cardinal Branda
Castiglione in the fifteenth century and inspired by the architecture he
had seen in Florence. Masolino, a pupil of Masaccio, created the limpid
frescoes you can see in the hilltop Collegiata and its baptistry . And
there are more frescoes in the Casa dei Castiglioni on the sleepy main
square, including one of Vezprem, Hungary, as described to Masolino by
the cardinal, who was bishop there for a while. Castiglione Olona livens
up on the first Sunday in the month, when an antiques market is held.
Further along the #B45 bus route, CASTELSEPRIO is less attractive but
worth visiting for its intriguing seventh-century church, Santa Maria
Foris Portas , which has exotic Byzantine-style frescoes of Christ's
Infancy , discovered during the last war by a partisan hiding in the
church.
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