The Oratories

A great and growing interest in history is leading an increasing number of people to rediscover the experience of the Confraternities so as not to forget and not lose the precious heritage that has accumulated over the centuries.
They have accompanied the human journey with an incredible variety of creative works that are still at the base of the social structure of our country.
Their offices, the Oratories, are scattered in the oldest urban centers and still jealously guard the traces of that history; traces so extraordinary that they are often listed among the main chapters in the history of Italian art.
Some of these speakers are always open, others must be requested; but to visit them it is necessary not only the custodian but, above all, a desire for knowledge.
In these few lines it is certainly not possible a specific deepening of each reality; our proposal is the starting point to arouse the desire for an encounter - because of this it is - with the religiosity of a people; an encounter that implies an approach, a contact and therefore knowledge and respect.

Oratory of San Gaetano
It belongs to what was the first church of the Dominican community, located at the end of Via San Domenico. It houses a splendid fresco by Ottavio Nelli, "Madonna del latte with musician angels and saints Domenico and Pietro martire.

Oratory of Death
Seat of the Confraternity that provided for the Christian burial of the dead. On its altar dominates the splendid Crucifixion with dolens and Maddalena by Federico Barocci, painted between 1597 and 1603, enclosed in a rich gold frame, sculpted by the same painter.

Oratory of Corpus Domini
Beautiful church from the beginning of the XVI century. The glorious history of the association is documented by some of the most beautiful paintings that today houses the Palazzo Ducale: The Communion of the Apostles by Giusto di Gand, The desecration of the Host by Paolo Uccello, Resurrection and Last Supper by Titian. Among his members were Giovanni Santi, Raffaello, Timoteo Viti, Federico Barocci.

Oratory of Sant'Andrea Avelllino
A circular plan, built at the beginning of the '700. Originally it was dedicated to San Sebastiano to whom the painting is dedicated to the main altar, a work by Giovanni Santi, today replaced by a copy of 1904.

Oratory of the Five Wounds
Very small, very well preserved. It is a testimony to a popular taste that can stand out with dignity alongside masterpieces of great masters.

Oratory of the Holy Cross
The oldest and perhaps the richest, before the Napoleonic spoliazioni. There was a collection of disciplines formed at the beginning of the fourteenth century. On the site are still visible frescoes by Giovanni Santi, Ottaviano Nelli and Giorgio Picchi.

Oratory of San Giovanni
Frescoed in 1416 by the Brothers Lorenzo and Jacopo Salimbeni from San Severino. Extraordinary example of that international gothic that represents the last link between the medieval painting and the new Renaissance conquests.

Oratory of San Giuseppe
The jewel of this Confraternity - which has distinguished itself in assisting the condemned to death and their family members - is made up of the Nativity made in scagliola between 1545 and 1550 by the urban plastificatore Federico Brandani.

Oratory of the visitation
This Oratory was born in the same year in which the homonymous Confraternity was established under the direction of Don Giovanni Bartolini. (...)
The building has a rectangular plan, with a single hall surmounted by a delicate vault, frescoed in the central part by Francesco Antonio Rondelli (1759 - 1848) with the image of the Assumption. Inside, on the left wall, there is a small portrait of Don Giovanni Bartolini that reminds him of the first confreres. A little further on is a canvas representing the Crucifixion, placed in front of the Annunciation, on the opposite wall. The two canvases, which can be traced back to Cialdieri, come from the demolished church of San Lorenzo in Solfinelli (near Pieve di Cagna).
On the left, a seventeenth-century painting by an unknown artist depicts the Madonna della Mercede and S. Francesco di Paola, co-owner with the Virgin, of the Confraternity.
On the right wall, in memory of his stay in Urbino, a Portrait of the Blessed Hippolytus Galantini. On the altar one can admire a canvas painted by Alfonso Patanazzi (1580-1616) depicting the Visitation of Mary to St. Elizabeth.