Sanzeno
Sanzeno is a small municipality in the heart of the Val di Non, in Trentino, set at around 640 metres above sea level among apple...
Updated 21 July 2026
This season · July · Summer
What to do in Sanzeno now
The story
The story of Sanzeno
Sanzeno in the Heart of Val di Non
Sanzeno lies in the central part of Val di Non, the broad Trentino valley famous for its apple growing, not far from Cles and Lake Santa Giustina. The municipality is administratively unusual: it is what is known as a comune sparso, a scattered municipality whose town hall sits in the hamlet of Banco, while the settlement that gives the municipality its name, Sanzeno proper, and the hamlet of Casez complete the territory. Casez is also home to Castel Casez, a medieval fortification that bears witness to the valley's old feudal organisation. The surrounding landscape alternates neatly rowed apple orchards, which turn the valley red in autumn, with woods and slopes climbing toward the first foothills of the Brenta Dolomites, in a rural setting that has kept a strong bond with its historical and religious roots.
The Basilica of the Anaunian Martyrs
The monument that defines Sanzeno is the Basilica of the Anaunian Martyrs, dedicated to Sisinio, Martirio and Alessandro, three missionaries from Cappadocia sent to Val di Non by Sant'Ambrogio, bishop of Milan, to evangelise populations still tied to pagan cults. In 397 the three were killed on this very spot, and their martyrdom gave the village its very name: the settlement was long known as San Sisinio, a name that later evolved into Sanzeno. The present basilica, one of the oldest churches in the valley, was commissioned from 1480 by the prince-bishop of Trento, Giovanni Hinderbach, built over an earlier thirteenth-century structure. Near the main square stands the church of Sant'Alessandro, which tradition holds was erected on the site of the martyrs' first chapel and dwelling, while a short distance away is the church of Santa Maria, dating back to the year 1000 and once flanked by a hospice for pilgrims and travellers.
The Sanctuary of San Romedio
Just outside the village, on a rocky spur that rises in isolation on the edge of Sanzeno's territory, stands one of the most striking sanctuaries in the Alps: the Sanctuary of San Romedio. The complex, built in several phases between the year 1000 and 1918, comprises five small stacked churches linked by a staircase of 130 steps carved into the rock, including the oldest, dedicated to San Nicolò, which holds the saint's relics, and the larger church of San Romedio from 1536. The sanctuary is tied to the legend of the Bavarian hermit who, after giving up his wealth and retreating to a cave in the valley, saw his horse mauled by a bear: according to the story, Romedio tamed the beast and rode it to Trento to meet Bishop Vigilio, an episode still recalled today through bears kept in an enclosure by the sanctuary. From Sanzeno it can be reached in a few minutes along a road of about one kilometre, or on foot along an old path built from a nineteenth-century aqueduct that runs along the edge of the gorge below.
The Gorge Path, the Museo Retico and the Natural Landscape
The bond between Sanzeno and San Romedio also runs through nature: the gorge path, created along the route of an old nineteenth-century aqueduct, runs high above the ravine cut by the stream descending from the mountain, offering a scenic and evocative walk between rock walls and lush vegetation. The ideal starting point is the Museo Retico, located in the Casalini area of Sanzeno, which since 2003 has told the story of Val di Non from the Palaeolithic to the early Middle Ages. The museum stands on the site where, between the 1920s and the 1950s, major excavation campaigns uncovered the ancient sacred site of the Rhaetians, the population that inhabited the valley before the Roman conquest: among the most celebrated finds recovered is the situla of Sanzeno, a bronze artefact from the Iron Age. The museum's spiral layout, arranged around a symbolic well of time, lets visitors trace millennia of history before stepping back out into the landscape of orchards and woods that surrounds the village.
History and Experiences
The origins of Sanzeno stretch back to prehistory and continue through the Rhaetian and Roman periods, when the settlement was known as Metho or Mecleo, before being radically transformed by the arrival of Christianity and the martyrdom of Saints Sisinio, Martirio and Alessandro in 397, an event that permanently shaped the village's identity and gave it its present name. From a Rhaetian pagan cult centre to one of Trentino's most important Christian pilgrimage sites, Sanzeno has crossed the centuries remaining a crossroads of faith and culture in the heart of Val di Non. Today this legacy translates into a visitor experience that links the Basilica of the Martyrs, the Sanctuary of San Romedio and the Museo Retico into a single itinerary, often walkable or cyclable along the paths connecting the different sites. Alongside cultural and religious tourism, the local economy remains strongly tied to apple growing, which shapes the valley's agricultural landscape and, with it, the community's own identity.
Not to be missed
- Basilica of the Anaunian Martyrs, on the site of the 397 martyrdom
- Sanctuary of San Romedio, with its five small churches and the bear legend
- Museo Retico di Sanzeno and the situla found in the Casalini excavations
- The gorge path along the old aqueduct leading to San Romedio
- A walk among the apple orchards of Val di Non and a visit to Castel Casez
To see
What to see in Sanzeno
Routes · Trovido Route
