Description

The Provost Church of Santa Maria Assunta is the parish church of Cernusco sul Naviglio, within the Metropolitan City and Archdiocese of Milan. It is the head church of the Cernusco sul Naviglio deanery and the town’s main church, featuring a fine high altar in polychrome marble and choir stalls originating from the former church that once stood in Piazza Matteotti. In Goffredo da Bussero’s Liber Notitiae Sanctorum Mediolani, it is recorded that the original church of Cernusco (was located in actual Piazza Matteotti) depended on the parish of Gorgonzola; documents from the sixteenth century show that it was a rectorial church. On 16 April 1584, Cardinal Saint Charles Borromeo laid the foundation stone of the new church, whose construction was financed with funds from the sale of the land on which the chapels of Saint Martin and Saint Maurice stood—buildings Borromeo ordered demolished, though they were documented as existing before the year 1000 in an area near Cernusco. The building was completed in 1640 and consecrated on 23 September 1642 by Francesco Abbiate, Bishop of Bobbio. In 1779, the faithful numbered only 141. In 1858, the church became the seat of a vicariate, which in 1918 was expanded to include the parishes of Camporicco, Carugate, Cologno Monzese, and San Giuliano. On 23 September 1907, construction began on the new parish church, designed by Ugo Zanchetta; interrupted by the First World War, the works were completed in 1932, and the church was consecrated on 17 July 1932 by Cardinal Archbishop Ildefonso Schuster. In 1972, the Vicariate of Cernusco—by then expanded to include the parishes of Bussero, Camporicco, Carugate, Cologno Monzese, Lavanderie, Limito, Novegro di Segrate, Pioltello, Rovagnasco di Segrate, Sant’Agata Martesana, San Maurizio al Lambro, Seggiano di Limito, Segrate, and Vimodrone—was transformed into a deanery following the territorial reorganization of the archdiocese promoted by Cardinal Giovanni Colombo. In 1974, the ancient parish church located in Piazza Matteotti was demolished, and in 1988 some parishes were separated from the Cernusco deanery to form the deanery of Cologno Monzese. In 2008, the church underwent a complete restoration. In front of the church are the SACER Oratory, a longstanding institution in Cernusco, and the Agorà Cinema.