Montorfano is a little town, in the municipality of Mergozzo, that can be reached on foot along a very old and picturesque scenic road that in several places overlooks the little Lake Mergozzo; alternatively you can go by car in just a few minutes along the carriage road leading from Verbania railway station.
Half-hidden and protected by a green basin, amongst small stone buildings, is the architectural complex of the Church of San Giovanni Battista, one of the most interesting and best-preserved Romanesque churches in the whole of Ossola Valley.
This church, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, has a Latin cross plan and an octagonal crossing tower decorated by three mullioned windows and one single-light window. The building is roofed with granite tiles, while the material used for the whole construction is Serizzo stone and granite, quarried locally in the Ossola Valley.
On the exterior, the gabled façade has a trabeated portal over which is a single-light window.
Inside the church, the ceiling is cross-vaulted, with its ribs resting on half capitals, but what most impresses more attentive visitors are certainly the fragments of frescoes in the apse and the Baroque altar-piece by the Florentine painter, Luigi Reali.
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