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Gaglianico (Biella)- Oratory of San Rocco
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Show to visit in the Biella area: |
 The small oratory of San Rocco stands at a crossroads along the old road to Sandigliano. Its construction date is unknown but it is certainly very old, so much so that in the seventeenth century it was already in poor condition. It was therefore rebuilt from scratch in the following century, fortunately maintaining the original apse and its frescoes (Renaissance as an era but still late Gothic as style).
In fact, the structure is heterogeneous, with an elongated hexagonal clearly Baroque central body and a semicircular apse clearly much older.
Externally the building is devoid of any decoration and the only plastered part is the facade, equipped with three rectangular windows, one in the center at the top and two smaller ones on the sides of the entrance. The rest of the structure, built with bricks and river pebbles, is with exposed walls.
The interior is also very simple: completely plastered in white and with a barrel vault, the only decoration is represented by a cornice at the junction between the walls and the ceiling.
The treasure of the oratory is represented by the frescoes that completely occupy the apse above about one meter in height.
In the center of the wall there is a Virgin with Child. On the right St. Ambrose and St. Peter. At the foot of the first one, kneeling, the client of the frescoes, Don Bernardino Cridis, as reported in the inscription above him. This inscription also reports the year, i526, in which the frescoes were painted. On the left are represented San Rocco, St. Sebastian and St. Paul. These frescoes, with some exceptions (see below), are the work of the workshop of Daniele De Bosis, a workshop active in the Biella area at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
In the apse there is a Virgin of Sorrows with Christ on her knees, attributed instead to Gaspare Da Ponderano, another country artist very active in the Biella area, and, on the sides, two noble coats of arms.
In the eighteenth century the frescoes on the wall were restored for a first time, adding, with the style of the time, what had been lost. This is, in particular, the case of San Rocco, who in fact clearly differs in the pictorial style from the other figures present.
Unfortunately a few decades later a second restoration was carried out during which the non-original parts that were deemed not worthy of being kept were removed. This is the reason why the commissioner of the frescoes appears headless and without hands.
The frescoes were professionally restored a last time in 2010 in order to make the most of all the parts present.
Categories: Places of historical value of artistic value
45.533480, 8.078019 |
Oratory of San Rocco: Further pictures in the section Photography |