On 14 May 2021, asteroid 113671 Sacromonte, discovered by amateur astronomer Luca Buzzi at the Schiaparelli Observatory in 2002, was named by the Working Group for Small Bodies Nomenclature after the Sacro Monte of Varese.

Monte Orona's landscape, situated inside the Parco regionale Campo dei Fiori, along the slopes of which descend the cobbled road over two kilometres long that touches the 14 chapels, it's typical of the Varese Prealps, with vast beech, chestnut and hazel woods.

It is believed, in fact, that in the place where the sanctuary dedicated to the Madonna is located (point of arrival of the devotional path) already in the fourth century there was a modest chapel built by Sant'Ambrogio as thanks for the victory over the Arians.

In 1604 the architect Giuseppe Bernascone, known as "il Mancino", was summoned to design the various chapels and the scenic route along the slopes of the mountain: he was the true artistic director of the construction of the entire devotional complex.

It is thus understood how desirable and urgent it should appear that the numerous processions to the sanctuary of Santa Maria could take place in the theatrical setting of an ascent marked by the rhythmic succession of prayers with moments of pause in which to meditate in front of the Mysteries represented plastically and vividly in the chapels.

Rosario (which appeared to be a miraculous thing at that time) was the result not only of the financial resources, but also of the undoubted organizational skills of Father Aguggiari and the other "deputies of the Fabbrica": the many types of different manpower needed (bricklayers, carpenters, plasterers, etc.)

Here the artistic quality of Giuseppe Bernascone, known as "il Mancino" is appreciated first of all in his ability to represent the prayer of the Rosary "in the form of a monument" by harmoniously blending architectural structures and landscape together.

It was hypothesized, given the singularly unitary conception of the Sacro Monte di Varese, that Bernascone, at least until 1627, assumed the role of "director-scenographer" discussing the solutions to be adopted for each "mystery chapel" with the artists called to populate them with statues and frescoes.

He also had to receive ideas and advice from some of these artists; first of all by Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli known as Morazzone, called to fresco the VII chapel (The flagellation) when he had acquired the reputation of a painter able to interpret with great skill that figurative realism and those mystical impulses, capable of instilling in the faithful feelings of piety and of devotion, in accordance with the pedagogical program that Cardinal Federico Borromeo entrusted to sacred art.

A large group of artists were called to create the chapels, united by the sharing of Frederick's conception of art and the experience of works in the Piedmontese and Lombard Sacred Mountains made in a language that goes, without stylistic contrasts, from Mannerism to Baroque.

Together with Bernascone, they gave the Sacro Monte di Varese the appearance of a sort of open-air museum of that high season of the Lombard seventeenth century that revolves around the figure of Federico Borromeo.