Oratory of St. Anthony Abbot

The small oratory, founded in the mid-fourteenth century by the Antonians, is characterized by its small size and deceptive modest appearance. In fact, if the exterior — with its bare stone facade and the portal whose only concession to the decoration is given by the semicircular bezel that overlooks it — passes almost unnoticed, the interior instead is a riot of frescoes and colors. The building has a Latin cross plan ending with a rectangular apse completely frescoed, a single nave and a roof with wooden trusses. In the right transept a Crucifixion of Jesus by the local artist Alessandro Bardelli is preserved, dating back to the first half of the seventeenth century; in the left one there is an original wooden sculpture depicting the Deposition of Christ dating back to the thirteenth (but restructured with a restoration in the mid-twentieth century) and easily attributable to that period for this iconography very widespread in the Romanesque era. The sculpture, originally completely colored, is popularly known as 'the ugly saints', perhaps because its formal characteristics is not excelled.