Cattedrale di San Lorenzo

What makes it special

San Lorenzo is the cathedral of the diocese, the mother church of Ticino. Its front is a flat screen of white stone from Saltrio and Viggiù and Carrara marble, divided into three by Corinthian pilasters and set with niches and roundels. Carved relief busts frame the three doorways, and a Gothic rose window sits above them.

The front went up early in the sixteenth century, in the Lombard Renaissance style. Look up for the middle cornice, which breaks its line halfway across.

Inside, the earliest paintings sit on the inside of the front wall above the Gothic cross vault. They are fourteenth-century fragments: traces of a Last Judgement, the head of an Apostle and a small corner of hell.

Most of the painting around them follows the models of Bernardino Luini and Gaudenzio Ferrari.

Visiting

Open from 8:30 to 18:30, and until 21:30 on Sundays and public holidays, the cathedral lets you walk straight in from the terrace with no ticket. Take in the carved front from the terrace wall before you go inside.

Once through the door, turn round and look up at the front wall for the earliest frescoes. Then walk up the nave to the marble high altar, decorated with cherubs, where the choir begins.

On the way back, find the old octagonal font, carved with an inscription, in the last bay of the south aisle. Outside again, cross to the edge of the terrace, where the old town's roofs run down to the lake.

Tips

Watch which funicular car you board. The Cattedrale platform sits beside only one track of the passing loop, so every other train in each direction runs past without stopping. If yours does, ride on and walk back: downhill from the station or uphill from the old town.