Santa Maria degli Angioli, Lugano

Why go

Santa Maria degli Angioli is a church on Piazza Bernardino Luini in Lugano that was once part of a Franciscan convent. Lugano Region, the regional tourism board, says the convent was founded in 1490 and that building of the church began in 1499 and was finished in 1515. The board's Italian page says the nave is divided from the choir by a screen wall (tramezzo) bearing a large fresco of the Crucifixion with scenes of the Passion, which it calls Bernardino Luini's last work (1529–32); it also attributes to Luini the prophets on the dividing pillars, a Last Supper on the left wall of the nave, taken from the refectory of the old convent, and a lunette of the Virgin and Child with the young Saint John in the first chapel. The board says a historical and artistic description of the church in six languages, provided by FAI Swiss, is available inside. Wikidata and the board's church page spell the name 'Santa Maria degli Angeli'; OpenStreetMap and the board's old-town page use 'Angioli'.