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Oggiono (Lecco, Italy): Church of Sant'Agata
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 The oldest evidence of the small church, located in the historic center not far from the Church of Sant'Eufemia, dates back to the thirteenth century.
The current version reflects a modernization made in the Baroque period, to be precise in the first quarter of the eighteenth century.
The facade, recently restored, is divided vertically into three parts, with the side parts lower. Totally devoid of decorations it is however embellished by windows behind fanciful baroque-shaped openings and curved upper edges in the lateral parts.
The interior has the peculiarity of being divided on two levels, with the lower (Larger imgage) being the main level and the low upper one (Fig. 4) with the function of a choral hall. The two floors are connected by a narrow staircase with stone steps.
The lower church, in late Baroque style, has a single nave divided into three unequal spans, with the central one being longer.
On the vaults of the nave, groups of festive angels were frescoed by Pasquale Agudio between 1896 and 1897.
The apse, with a square plan, represents the most decorated part of the church. It is characterized by the presence, above the altar in polychrome marble, of a large niche framed by a trompe l'oeil retable. Inside there is a large statue of the Carmine Virgin. The ceiling of the apse is embellished with stuccos probably from the 700s and with paintings, some maybe by P. Agudio. In the center of the vault the coronation of the Virgin, with the four Evangelists around. In the under-arch, furthermore, the Doctors of the Church.
The vault of each span of the nave is decorated with plant and floral motifs and musician cherubs frescoed by Pasquale Agudio between 1896 and 1897.
At the center of the vault of each span there is a mixtilinear stucco frame containing a fresco with cherubs in the clouds.
The side walls are then enriched by two balconies with baroque lines. Of them the left one (Fig. 3) is fake, as it is blind, the right one, on the other hand, is real and can be reached through the same staircase that leads to the upper floor.
On the left wall of the first span as you enter there is a canvas from the mid-seventeenth century depicting Sant'Agata venerated by San Pietro, San Carlo and two brothers.
The upper church reproduces the scheme of the lower one. It is an oratory with a single rectangular nave (Fig. 4), with a false semicircular apse (fig. 5). It hosts a seventeenth-century walnut choir, arranged along three walls of the hall and enriched by four nineteenth-century silver-plated torches (once columns of a sedan chair) surmounted by an angel. The hall is illuminated not only by two rectangular side windows, but also by the large central window on the facade, characterized by an imaginative mixtilinear baroque shape.
Above the trompe l'oeil altar, in the center of a rococo retable (it too trompe l'oeil) decorated with volutes and flower vases, there is a large oil painting on canvas from the 18th century depicting the Madonna of the Rose.
Categories: Places of artistic value
Via Giuseppe Parini, 7, 23848 Oggiono LC |
Further pictures of Church of Sant'Agata in the section Photography |