Point of interest

The small church of Romanesque origin, surrounded by the cemetery, is located on a hill to the north of the present village. It is said that in the 4th century, St Zeno, bishop of Verona, came here to celebrate mass on the hill, halfway between Verona and Lake Garda, to meet, evangelise and baptise the local people and the lake area. The term ‘pieve’, in fact, derives from the Latin ‘plebs’, meaning people, and indicated a generally rural meeting place. The parish church dates back to around the year 1000 but certainly already existed in 966, as attested by a parchment preserved in the State Archives of Verona. It is built with stones arranged in a herringbone pattern and worked with mortar decorated with lozenges, to make them more harmonious in the sober Romanesque structure. It was erected on the site of a previous Longobard church and a Roman pagan temple from before that time. In Roman and Longobard times, it was the site of sacred rites, first pagan and then Christian. A Roman altar walled in protrusion at the left corner of the church façade is clearly identifiable, probably an ancient pagan altar.

This sacred place had originally only one nave but two apses, one enclosing the high altar and the other the ancient baptismal font. The interior was completely painted: the remaining frescoes are of inestimable value, the oldest dating back to the year 1000.