The sanctuary of the SS. Pietà of Cannobio is set on Lake Maggiore, three kilometres away of the Swiss borderline.
At the beginning of the 15th century where today rises the sanctuary continued the curtain of houses and palaces that formed and form the façade of the lake of the ancient village of Cannobio. In one of these houses lived the family of Tommaso Zaccheo.
In this house in the winter of 1522 happened miracle facts and they are the reason that the sanctuary was built.
A little painting on parchment (27,5 cm x 30) represents Jesus Christ in Pity between Maria and Giovanni the evangelist, today kept in a niche which were drew inside the main altar under the table of Gaudenzio Ferrari, once hung on the wall in the main room. On 8th, 9th, 10th and 28th January 1522 an then later on 4th and 27th February, the parchment were bleeding. The wounds of the body of Jesus revived and drops of blood were flowing from the painting to the linen chest that were set under. This drops were collect in a goblet and brought by a procession in the parish Church where it is protect today, in a precious reliquary which the cardinal Federico Borromeo has donated in 1605. The clothes stained of blood are closed in the urn set under the table of the main altar of the sanctuary.
Two years after the miracle there were constitute the so-called “Brotherhood of Devotion” that renovated the superior rooms of the house of Zaccheo, drew a little chapel.
In this chapel S. Carlo Borromeo celebrated the penultimate mess and he organized the construction of a Sanctuary for honouring the miracle happened.
He entrusted the project to Tibaldi who served local workers for the realisation directed from Beretta of Brissago. From 1575 to 1614 with the financially support of the citizens and devotes the erection of the structure could happen and then along the 16th century enriched with plasters, frescoes and canvases until reaching the splendour of today.
The façade of the sanctuary is the most recently one; it’s the work of Febo Bottini he would it in Rosa granite of Baveno. It was completed in 1908 and decorated with ornate elements: the gable end statues (two angels with symbols of the passion, spear and sponge) and the medallion of bronze refined with two graceful little angels that are bearing a wreath of noble facture, a work from Luigi Branca of Cannobio. Inside the medallion is represented by the miracle effigy of the Santa Pietà.
A good facture is also the woody portal with the two representations of the Pietà and the Virgin of the Rosario.
