Via Per Premadio - 23038 (SO)
San Gallo stands isolated between Bormio and Premadio, along the old Roman strada regina leading up to the Fraele Pass.
Its very distinctive outline features a steep roof and slender, pointed bell tower. The current church dates to the end of the 15th century but the original church dedicated to Saint Gall was built long before.
It was initially a simple chapel with a nave and apse, under the jurisdiction of the parish church of Bormio. Portions of its original foundations were discovered under the floor of the current church and other parts are still visible aboveground: an old wall has been incorporated into the side of the church towards the cemetery; traces of the old semicircular apse are visible near the deteriorated fresco of Saint Sebastian, with Romanesque-style painted bands dating to the late 11th or early 12th century.
The church was enlarged c. 1480 to serve the wards of Premadio Molina and Turripiano, which had broken away from Bormio to become an autonomous parish in 1467. Capacity was further increased by building a loggia for men above the entrance; the cemetery developed and the parson’s manse (demolished in 1844) was built on the side towards the fields.
In 1482, at the height of devotional fervor in the new parish church, the walls were arrayed in new colors: the surviving painted decorations include saints in faux wooden niches culminating in a trilobate form like Tyrolean late-Gothic triptychs and Gothic mullioned windows with holy personages against the bluish background.
The same style characterizes the image of Simon of Trent lying lifeless with bound hands and feet and a scarf tight around his neck on an altar alongside instruments of torture. The boy had died in Trento just a few years earlier, in 1475, and the blame was pinned on the local Jewish community. News of his supposed martyrdom spread quickly through the Bormio area and the worship of “beato Simonino” was established.
For the following two centuries, the faithful gravitated to the church of San Gallo, which gradually filled with altars. In 1631, a large and luminous presbytery was added. Unfortunately, the church was rather far from the neighboring villages. The parson eventually decided to move his residence to Premadio and began celebrating mass in the church of San Cristoforo, even though it would not be elevated to parish church until 1833. The gradual loss of function inevitably left San Gallo marginalized. The memory of its dedication to the Irish monk Saint Gall is now entrusted to a modern statue.
