Magasa, the largest town in the Vestino Valley, was under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Pieve of Tignale for a long time until 1785. The Church of Sant’Antonio Abate (St Anthony the Abbot), probably built in the 16th century, was declared a curacy on 28 June, 1564.

Images: Cheleo Multimedia

It was equipped with a pipe organ as early as the 17th century and rebuilt between 1739 and 1744. The register of baptisms and deaths begins in 1649, that of marriages in 1655.

At the entrance of the town stands the 35-metre-high granite bell tower that was built in 1768 and bears the Latin inscription “Unam time horam” (fear only one hour) under the clock. Located in the heart of the historic centre of Magasa, the church does not have a churchyard, but stands out for its gabled façade with an arcade on the east side overlooking the valley. The façade has a central portal, a rectangular window, and a tympanum crowned by a metal cross.

The interior has a single decorated and plastered nave with a barrel-vaulted ceiling and pitched roof, and two side altars opposite each other. The artistic red and yellow ammonite stone floor from the “Marmer” quarries of Mount Denervo are unique in the Vestino Valley. The shrine in Montecastello and the churches of Piovere, Muslone, and Sasso were paved with this kind of marble. The presbytery area is slightly raised and embellished with a finely carved wooden choir that was created around 1770 by a carver from Valsabbia, Giovan Battista Boscaì da Vezzoli. The presbytery has a vaulted and frescoed ceiling; it ends in a flat apse with curved corners, housing the great soasa of the high altar. Next to the church are the sacristy and the bell tower.

The high altar features a valuable altarpiece depicting the crowning of the Virgin with St John the Baptist, St Anthony the Abbot, and St Lawrence, the patron saints of the Valley, Magasa, and Cadria respectively, by the Brescian painter Francesco Savanni, who painted it in 1763 on behalf of the Abbot of Magasa, Giovanni Maria Zeni.

An altarpiece from 1800 featuring Our Lady of the Rosary was created by the painter Bartolomeo Zeni di Bardolino, again commissioned by the aforementioned abbot. An altarpiece by an unknown artist dating back to the 17th century is dedicated to St Valentine the priest and the souls in Purgatory.

But the most important painting, although small in size, is that of Our Lady of Grace or Graces; it was donated to the community of Magasa by Count Carlo Ferdinando di Lodrone in 1714, a copy of a painting in San Luca in Rome. The Count had it made specially during one of his trips to the capital. In fact, Magasa, like all the other villages in the Valley, was a fief of the Counts of Lodrone and part of the territory of the Bishopric of Trento from 1200 to 1807.

At the end of the 19th century, the church was equipped with a new pipe organ, placed in the chancel on the inside of the façade; the organ was recovered from the church of San Martino in Gargnano. Parts of it could be attributed to the well-known Antegnati company and it was adapted and rebuilt for the church of Sant’Antonio Abate by Giuseppe Bonatti.