Santo Stefano Church (Tesserete)

View from the west

The Provost Church of Santo Stefano is in Tesserete in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland .

description

The church was first mentioned in 1078. A new building around 1444 and an extension to the east and north in the third quarter of the 18th century gave it its present-day appearance. Only the seven-storey tower with blind arcades , twin windows and the medieval conical roof in the middle of the facade has survived from the previous Romanesque building. In front of the facade is a three-bay pillared vestibule; on the right side there are remains of a Gothic painting of St. Christopher .

The interior of the church is richly decorated with numerous pictures, frescoes, stucco work and marble. The wide nave with several side chapels separated from each other by belt arches is covered with four pointed arched cross vaults. The semicircular retracted choir with barrel vault is part of the baroque construction phase. The fourteen-seat Renaissance choir stalls behind the classicistic high altar with tempietto columns dates from 1568 and was created by Andrea Caratano from Varese . Behind it hangs a remarkable painting of the stoning of St. Stephen from the late 16th century.