THE ORATORY

The small oratory is located in the south-west corner of the main body of the villa. This chapel is known to have existed at least since 1620, when it was dedicated to St. Sebastian. It has the characteristic of a small independent building, located along the surrounding wall, its front facing the “strada comune” to emphasize its dual function, both public and private.

The current location is, instead, the result of many transformations which occurred over the centuries.

In 1775, in fact, the noble owner Giovanni Antonio Dondi dall’Orologio provided for the demolition of the archaic oratory, which was rebuilt from scratch. The new chapel was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin of Loreto, venerated together with her House of Nazareth in the homonymous sanctuary near Ancona and, for this reason, it was built as an actual replica of it.

The structure of the chapel is rectangular, with a barrel roof: once, the ceiling was a starry one, like the one frescoed by Giotto in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua; however, the original was demolished in the Eighties of the past century.

There is a small split on the left wall: the blade of light which comes out of it hits, as much now as it did back then, the altar area every December 10^th, day of the translation of the Holy House.

The walls of the area in front of the altar are frescoed to simulate the brick walls of Loreto, using a technique called “regalzier”. The paintings by Antonio Buttafogo (active between 1772 and 1817) on three sides in the area in front of the altar recall the real Holy House’s walls, simulating the flaking plaster which exposes the brick walls and the fresco lacerations where, even with their adaptation to eighteenth-century pictorial pictorial style, it is possible to recognize the imagery related to Loreto iconography.  On the left wall, the Virgin and Child appear surrounded by cherubs; on their right, they follow a Sacra Conversazione with St. Catherine and St. John the Evangelist.

On the right wall are represented a Virgin with Child and a Sacra Conversazione with St. Bartholomew, St. Anthony Abbot and a holy king, who could be Louis IX of France, accompanied by the horse that, according to legend, prostrated himself to the sight of Nazareth in 1251.

On the opposite side, to the left, there are the Virgin with Child and two kneeling donors: they are probably the two patrons, the brothers Giovanni Antonio and Francesco Dondi dall’Orologio. (Barbara Maria Savy, Sara Danese | trad. Anna Dal Pont, Sarah Ferrari)