Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The city is planning the opening of a major arts centre, the
Centro Culturale della Città di
A good way to get around town is the
Lugano City Tour
( 079 685 70 70; adult/child Sfr9/5;
10am-10pm mid-Jun-Aug, shorter hrs rest of year)
toy train, which starts along the waterfront just out-
side the tourist office and ranges across the city, including stopping at the two funicular
stations.
Chiesa di Santa Maria degli Angioli
CHURCH
(St Mary of the Angel; Piazza Luini; 7am-6pm)
The simple Romanesque Chiesa di Santa Maria
degli Angioli contains two remarkable frescoes by Bernardino Luini dating from 1529.
Covering the entire wall that divides the church in two is a grand didactic illustration of
the Crucifixion. The closer you look, the more scenes of Christ's Passion are revealed,
along with others of him being taken down from the cross and his resurrection. Note also
Luini's depiction of the Last Supper on the left wall.
Cattedrale di San Lorenzo
CATHEDRAL
(St Lawrence Cathedral; Via San Lorenzo; 6.30am-6pm)
The early 16th-century Cattedrale di San
Lorenzo boasts a Renaissance facade and contains some fine frescoes and ornately decor-
ated baroque statues. The interior was undergoing massive restoration works when we vis-
ited, with just one of the chapels open to the public.
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
A slow learner at school, Alessandro Manzoni (1785-1873) became an Italian icon as the country's greatest 19th-
century novelist. Born into a family from Barzio, outside Lecco in Valsassina, Manzoni led a life of relative ease,
with revenue from farmlands in Lombardy. Thus freed up, he devoted considerable time to writing his magnum
opus,
I promessi sposi
(
The Betrothed
), an epic novel set in fictional plague times and at the same time a thinly
veiled expression of Italian nationalism at a time when the country was largely under foreign control. He wrote in
what he hoped to express as a standard national Italian language, based largely on Tuscan, abandoning his own
Milanese dialect. He died three years after Italy achieved his dream of unity and independence.
Museo Cantonale d'Arte
GALLERY
