What were those young artists seeking when they moved from Basel to the Mendrisiotto around 1925 with sudden enthusiasm? Their names led to the creative experience of the “Rot-Blau”, whose distinctive feature is chromatic expressiveness.

In those days the Mendrisiotto and Lower Ceresio was a poor, farming area where those young artists found a natural and human landscape with strong, vibrant colours and warm, Lombardy light. For them the Mendrisiotto was an inexhaustible source of uncontaminated inspiration of stimuli for art.
As in those days, this is still a land of stimuli today. There are few European regions which can offer a territory so rich in artistic testimony in few square kilometres. 

The Mendrisiotto and Lower Ceresio has been a land of very well-known artists, painters, sculptors and architects for centuries; from the famous architects Francesco Borromini, Carlo Fontana and Carlo Maderno who worked in Rome, from Baldassarre Longhena, who was famous in Venice to the Masters from Campione who worked in France, Russia and Poland and to Mario Botta; from the sculptors Vincenzo Vela and Apollonio Pesina to Remo Rossi and Ivo Soldini; from the writers Francesco Chiesa and Alberto Nessi to the naturalist Luigi Lavizzari and to the many young local painters, sculptors, writers, photographers and musicians who make the artistic life of this region very interesting; a region which, by tradition, is a cultural bridge between the important artistic poles of Milan, Zurich and Basel.
Many Swiss and foreign artists have been guests in this Swiss Lombardy; at random we can mention Petra Weiss, Giacomo Puccini, Gerhart Hauptmann or the heroes of the Italian Risorgimento.
 
Those who love to discover a region by walking will find precious treasurs, to be enjoyed with respect and peace; in the Muggio Valley they will also find an exceptional Museum in the territory.

The hills of the Mendrisiotto and Lower Ceresio, dotted with olive trees and covered by vineyards, by thick woods of chestnut trees and beech trees, by intense green in summer and bright colours in autumn, surround villages which hide real artistic and architectonic treasures, like the Züst Cantonal Picture Gallery in Rancate, Casa Cantoni in Muggio, the Pollini and Torriani mansions in Mendrisio, the Romanesque church of Saint Agatha in Tremona, the Paleochristian Baptistery in Riva San Vitale, the Vela Museum in Ligornetto, the Fossil Museum in Meride, the 18th century loggia of the Allio House in Arzo, the Servite Cloister and Art Museum in Mendrisio, the villas in Brusata and Loverciano, the farms of Mezzana and the Villas of Puccini and Leoncavallo in Vacallo or the family homes of famous contemporary architects like Tita Carloni, Ivano Gianola and Mario Botta, which offer a kind of ideal dwelling model for a class of cultured people.

But the bucolic landscape tinted with nostalgia should not make us forget that this land is extremely modern and dynamic and is an important place of European culture thanks to the Academy of Architecture in Mendriso, a cosmopolitan and humanistic centre where the students can meet international celebrities like Zaha Hadid, Franck Gehry and Massimo Cacciari inside the walls of the neo-classical Turconi Villa, which has been rendered less severe by a huge multicoloured bird, the work of Niki de Saint-Phalle.

The cultural dynamism of the region is also obvious from the numerous open-air summer events and from the programme of the Cinema Teatro in Chiasso, which is an architectonic jewel from 1930 ca. and has been recently restored. It is open not only for prose and cinema, but also for contemporary dance and music.
Beside this active cultural laboratory, which is projecting the image of Chiasso again, an original artistic pole has been created: the new, avant-garde m.a.x.museum, dedicated mainly to graphics, design, photographs and video, as well as the Spazio Officina.

Besides these works the Mendrisiotto and Lower Ceresio Region also offers the attentive visitor great simplicity and popular art, which can be found in the numerous churches and chapels, in the ice-houses, in the potters’ boutiques, in the kilns and artistic foundries which complete the rich offer.
Together they make this land a true place of culture!