Chiesa della Madonna della Neve, Parabiago

The church of Madonna della Neve is a religious building located in Ravello, a hamlet of Parabiago. Records of the original first construction of the church are lacking, although in the 13th century Goffredo da Bussero already mentions a church of Santa Maria, probably located in the hamlet, which at the time consisted of a number of noble villas.

In 1734 the ancient temple was being restored, but at the end of the 18th century, Parabiago parish priest Don Agostino Peregalli made a plea to the Milanese curia saying that the church was ". Too cramped, damp and ruinous, no longer amenable to restoration..." and at the same time excessively small, such that it could not hold even half of the approximately 130 residents in Cassina Ravello, as the village was called at the time.

Thus on January 4, 1794, a contract was awarded to Paolo Lamperti master builder, Master Carlo Lamperti and Master Giovanni Colombo Bongino, for the construction of the house of worship, designed by the great Parabiagian cabinetmaker Giuseppe Maggiolini. The construction lasted about a year, and the new church was blessed and consecrated by parish priest Peregalli himself on August 1, 1795.

From 1795 is the anonymous fresco, located in an elliptical niche above the altar and depicting Our Lady of the Snow with the Child Jesus, St. Roch and St. Catherine of Alexandria; in the same year a number of canvases were donated to the church, including the still-existing Crucifixion and Deposition. Still to be remembered is a tablet depicting the Madonna, Saint Roch and Saint Lucy in the foreground, in the background the countryside around Ravello with animals and peasants in adoration, and below it the inscription "By the grace of the Blessed Virgin this cassina was preserved from the cattle epidemic in the year 1746-47."