Muggio

Muggio stands at 665 metres, about ten kilometres north-east of Mendrisio, in the valley to which it gave its name: the southernmost in Switzerland, cut by the middle course of the Breggia. The village includes the hamlets of Scudellate and Roncapiano. Its land is three-quarters wooded — over the 8.39 square kilometres of the former commune, 77.1% forest against 8.2% farmland.

The name appears in 852, in the form Mugio. The valley has been inhabited since antiquity; in the ninth century unfree peasants worked holdings here, and in 1299 several plots belonged to the cathedral chapter of Como. In church matters Muggio long depended on Cabbio: only after 1673 did it become a vice-parish, attached until the nineteenth century to the mother church at Balerna.

The village has a history of work and of departures. In the fifteenth century its craftsmen had specialised in making the long wooden oars for the military fleet of the Duchy of Milan. Later, farming and livestock were no longer enough: large waves of emigration followed one another between 1850 and 1940, and since the 1950s the population has kept falling.

The built fabric survived those departures, and it is classed as of national importance in the ISOS inventory of protected settlements. The parish church of San Lorenzo, recorded from 1578, was rebuilt in 1760 to plans by Giuseppe Fontana: a baroque façade, trompe-l'œil frescoes in the dome. Opposite stands the Casa Cantoni-Fontana, an eighteenth-century house. To these are added the oratory of San Giovanni Battista, attested from 1582, the public washhouses, two neoclassical fountains raised in 1838 to plans by Luigi Fontana, and a nevèra at the Alpe Génor.

Why this place is remarkable

Few villages keep so precise a trace of their former trade: in the fifteenth century the craftsmen of Muggio cut the long wooden oars of the military fleet of the Duchy of Milan. What remains today lies in the built fabric — public washhouses, colonnaded fountains of 1838, an alpine nevèra, a baroque church rebuilt in 1760 — classed as of national importance in the ISOS inventory. The village has also been, since 2016 and together with Cabbio, a member of the association of the most beautiful villages of Switzerland.

History and origin

The end of the commune of Muggio was settled in the courts. On 20 April 2008 the merger of Bruzella, Cabbio, Caneggio, Morbio Superiore, Muggio and Sagno into a commune of Breggia was announced; Muggio refused it. The Ticino Grand Council issued a decree all the same, against which the commune appealed to the Federal Supreme Court. The appeal was lost and the merger took place on 25 October 2009. Muggio nevertheless keeps its patriziato: the families native to the place answer for the upkeep of the property within the village boundaries.