MASINO – frazione of Ardenno – Wall Madonna – This is likely an early 20th-century fresco. The owners decorated their Madonna with a beautiful white rose vine!
I had a great day in Ardenno yesterday. I visited four frazioni and I am working on my photos. But here is a quick post from the frazione Masino. Masino lies on the western edge of Ardenno on the bank of the torrente with which it sharesaname. Historically, this was the area for the stables and barns of Adrenno. Here the inhabitants housed and bred their livestock, stored their grains and grasses, and plied the trades that serviced an agricultural lifestyle. As Ardenno evolved and the population grew, modernity absorbed and reinvented the area. Old stone barns and stables now host apartments whose inhabitants no longer farm the hills. I stopped here on my way home to photograph a Wall Madonna I had seen. Perhaps today I will return to better explore this pretty hamlet.
MASINO – frazione of Ardenno – A large rehabbed home with a very pretty door!
The original stone of this large, rehabbed building was covered with cement – likely a needed technique to stabilize the ancient structure. It has a lovely quasi-symmetrical facade with a beautiful old wooden door.
MASINO – frazione of Ardenno – Entry door – Coat-of-arms or Stemma of the family who owned the house
This is the entry door to a large home sitting directly on the torrente. I did my best to research this interesting coat-of-arms / stemma. The family Masini uses a castle with three turrets as their symbol. The family Scerni – a Genovese family – uses an arrow as their signifier. Often when families marry they merge their symbology. But I am only guessing here as to the family that owns this stemma. I think definitely the family Masini as least.
I am a retired academic - a sociologist, sociolinguist, ethnographer, and photo-ethnographer. I am building this website and blog to share my passion for the public and private art of Italy. My main focus is on the Wall Madonna. The concept ‘Wall Madonna’ is my own. It is the name I give to the art found on the external walls of many of the homes of the locals which depicts Mary – the woman called Theotokos – God-bearer. I use Wall Madonna to refer to those images frescoed on the outside of homes and public buildings, or the paintings, carvings and statuary attached to the same. My intent is to examine Wall Madonna’s as a type of visual language and gesture in order to come to an understanding of their function and purpose in Italian social life.
In searching for Wall Madonna’s I try to present a broader harvest of my quest so that the towns and cities I visit are frescoed for the reader in my blogs. Therefore, I like to include streetscapes, doors – which have a language of their own, vistas, and the life of the people as reflected in the things one sees as one peruses a town.
Because my family is from the Valtellina and because the valley is lush and beautiful and steeped in history - and an abundance of Wall Madonna’s – I have a small home here. I love the Valtellina. I hope my photos capture your attention. There is no greater joy than sharing this art with others.
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Wall Madonna's of the Valtellina 