In its current form, the Santuario della Madonna della Neve in Domodossola is a building that dates back to the early 17th century, commissioned by Bernardino Lazzaro of Val d’Intelvi and erected on shelters that formerly protected a previous small church from the Bogna river.
The image of the Madonna and Child above the altar, painted in 1372, is a fresco on a wall constructed of barely cemented river pebbles that belonged to the primitive oratory.
The two large paintings in the presbytery represent the Marriage of the Virgin and Saint Blaise. Above the entrance door to the shrine’s atrium, Carlo Mellerio, a Vigezzo-born painter, created a fresco in 1674 depicting the miracle of the snowfall on the Esquiline Hill in Rome. In 1925, in the presence of King Vittorio Emanuele III, a monument to the fallen by Angelo Balzardi was inaugurated in the square: the three bronze statues portray Grief, Sacrifice and Victory.
Between 2016 and 2018, important restoration work was carried out on the external façades funded by honorary Domodossola citizen Léonard Gianadda, president of the Pierre Gianadda Foundation based in Martigny.
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