San Lucio is a popular saint, and his cult was born spontaneously on the mountains of the extreme border of the Province of Como with the Canton Ticino, around the town of Cavargna. The period in which he lived is uncertain, but it is reasonable to place his martyrdom between the 13th and 14th centuries.
Tradition says that a shepherd who cared for the cattle and offered the poor the cheese that his master gave him for pay. This cheese multiplied miraculously, causing the envy of the owner, as well as disappointment at the lack of sales, so much so that he ended up killing Lucio at a pond, located on the ridge between Val Cavargna and Val Colla. Even today, the waters of that alpine pool turn red on the day of his feast, July 12, the date of his martyrdom.
Even if not canonized, the devotion to the Saint of Cavargna spread rapidly, spread by the cheesemakers and the alpinists who moved for their work.
The iconography represents Lucio in a shepherd’s dress, with a cheese shape and a knife in the act of cutting it, often with a palm branch, symbol of martyrdom.
The cult of the Saint spread in northern Italy from the thirteenth century and reached Milan, Bergamo, Brescia, Lodi, Codogno, Piacenza and Parma becoming the patron saint of cheese makers and their corporations, thanks to the emigrants of Val Cavargna who in their wanderings due to the itinerant activity of “magnani” (coppersmiths or cauldrons) who also repaired the boilers of the dairies, spread the cult in about fifty locations in northern Italy and Ticino.
Text by: Giancarlo Gonizzi