Just a few meters from the cathedral, it is a oratory of Renaissance origins (1494), with the facade restored by Vincenzo Vitali in 1830. The origins of the oratorio, born as a shrine, are linked to a miraculous event occurred in 1489 the house of James Nicholas dell'aromatario, in the neighborhood of the Cross, where an image of the Madonna painted on a wall became the protagonist of a holy event (of weeping or exudation). The crowd of worshipers who flocked to worship the image of home purchase determined by the religious authorities and civil, through the grant of Bishop Luke Food, the building of a church, made according to Renaissance (central plan, strong growth in height of the walls internally decorated by niches). Some scholars attribute the sculptor Francesco di Bartolomeo da Pietrasanta, in those years to the present Foligno, The church project, but there is no document that the certifying. Whoever was the author of the project, did not consider it appropriate to put the image of the miraculous Madonna announced, call, just, with affectionate endearment, Nunziatella, centrally located, leaving, instead, in its place, in the left corner of the wall and placing it inside one of the niches of the church, set on a step that runs along the square of the plant. What is now the visitor can see inside are five altars, four inside the chapel and a sacristy, located within larger niches. On the back wall two altars: left, the main, which presents, within finely carved and gilded wooden shrine, the miraculous image of Our Lady, commissioned by Niccolò di Giacomo to an unknown artist of the '400. Inside aedicule, on the right, included the 'Angel Announcing of Nicholas Lattanzio, transferred at the end of the nineteenth century at the Municipal Art Gallery and was stolen in 1980. In the background is a fresco by Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi from Pesaro or Hercules Ramazzani Arcevia, dated 1575, depicting the Holy Spirit with Angels and, down, San Feliciano and Blessed Peter Crisci; in the bezel Eternal Father among cherubs.

On the right, the only altar known to be the patron, one dedicated to St. John the Baptist, once the city's patron. It is painted with Baptism of Christ, operates the Perugino dating back to 1513 about (1505-1508 0 1512-1513). The shell is shown the Lord worshiped by two angels. Commissioned the work was Giovan Battista Merganti, distinguished personage Foligno, as evidenced by the inscription under the bezel and the family crest at the top left of the fresco. The latter refers to previous productions of Perugino, first of the fresco in the Sistine, taken, with variants, tablet in Vienna, in the polyptych of St. Augustine and many predellas. The foreground of the painting is the Jordan River, position that allows both to perform the function cathartic purification of the viewer, which has the feeling of being immersed in the same waters, is to approximate the Holy Land, the city of Foligno, foreshadowed in the river landscape and hilly, mail as it is at the foot of hills and at the time surrounded by two rivers Topino and Menotre.

The theme of the new Jerusalem see also third altar, placed on the right wall, with the wooden altar of Our Lady of Loreto. Now is the inscription "In Nazareth, except donum”, placed along the entablature: a gift from Nazareth. We included the painting of Our Lady of Loreto, now in the Pinacoteca.

On the left wall is the fourth altar dedicated to the Crucifix: a crucifix in the center of the canvas pinstripe, by a local artist of the seventeenth century; fresco paintings on the sides include the Madonna, Mary Magdalene and St. John; in the lunette Weeping angels. With the representation of Calvary completes the transfer of sacredness from the Holy Land in Foligno. The painting, recently attributed to the French Noel Quillerier, present in the years to Foligno 1625-26, was executed between 1621, Feliciani year in which the bishop had removed the original altar of St. Michael and St. Rocco, whose tables are stored in the Pinacoteca (in time, in fact, the five altars of which was equipped with the Nunziatella, were soon enriched with images of saints therapeutic: In addition to the aforementioned St. Michael and St. Rocco, other altars were dedicated to Saint Sebastian and Saint Anthony. Note is, in fact, the apotropaic function of San Rocco and San Sebastiano, that protected by endemic diseases like the plague; equally important roles of St. Anthony Abbot, protector of animals and of St. Michael the Archangel, winner of the devil and psychopomp, or weighing of souls) and 1643, when the altar of the Crucifix is ​​attested by the bishop's pastoral visit to Montecatini.

In the sacristy, erected in the neighboring house, was placed on fifth altar, of Deposition, where he painted the Lamentation over the Dead Christ, complex pyramidal composition with Christ sitting on a rock, Madonna, Mary Magdalene and St. John the Evangelist. On the left depicts a group of rock where the tomb is opened and an angel with Nicodemus. The fresco, now much deteriorated, was formerly attributed to Raphael, Lorenzo Lotto and Andrea Mantegna. Lately the criticism is directed towards the names of Paul Giannicola, of Pordenone, Friuli and Pavia Benedict of Master Gaspar, documented in Foligno 1511.

In the sacristy you can see the press used for the first printing of The Divine Comedy.

For more information: such. 0742 357989 – 0742 330580

Accessibility

Since the monument placed at about 300 meters from Piazza della Repubblica, is recommended for people with disabilities who arrive by car to park, if they have permission, in the same square, or next to the Cathedral of San Feliciano (Square of the Bishopric) where there are parking spaces reserved. The route to the Oratory has an uneven paving stone. To access it, Disabled people can ring a bell instead, with the intercom, at, at a height of cm 133, to get him to open the double doors leading to the sacristy. At the entrance of the sacristy there is a short steep ramp; There is also another entrance with small steps, which leads directly to the real area of ​​the oratory, inside which there are small steps of 3/4 cm. There are toilets. Guided tours are available in English and French.

Gallery

Map

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