Sant’Andrea is the church in the hamlet of Bonzeno. Situated on a panoramic hillock overlooking the Coltogno plain and the lake, it can be reached on foot up a flight of steps accompanied by the evocative chapels of the Via Crucis, built in 1907.
There is not much information about its origins, but it is certainly one of the oldest of the oratories dotted around the area. The temple was already present in the 13th century, as attested by an annotation in the Liber Notitiae Sanctorum Mediolani, and there is some information regarding its reconsecration on November 2, 1355, probably following structural reworking. In all likelihood, the complex has undergone four renovations and they concerned the presbyterial area and the nave in the seventeenth century, the high altar built in 1672 and renovated in 1869, the chapel of the Madonna in 1653, the chapel of Sant’Eurosia in 1683 and finally the construction of the small bell tower in 1741 with the chapel of the crucifix a few years later.
The first, a hut, is distinguished by the snow-white that makes it clearly visible from the plain below and from the lake. It has a stone portal surmounted by three openings in Serlian style. Inside a valuable life-size crucifix of the thirteenth century is preserved, with the face marked by rigor mortis. The church also has a fresco of the Madonna and Child from the early 16th century, while the frescoes on the left wall have disappeared, torn off in 1653 for the construction of the second chapel.
