CHURCHES

• 

  S. MARY CHURCH

  Starting from here means getting a 360° panoramic view of Crespellano, its hillsides and fertile plains, with the chance of also visiting the church of Santa Maria Nascente, of which documented evidence exists dating back as far as 1148. After 1461 the ius patronato passed to the Aldrovandis, and was entrusted directly to the parishoners in the late 1800s. The building, whose interior makes it one of the most beautiful of our territory, is composed of a single nave with side chapels. The church has preserved an altarpiece depicting Saints Augustine and Monica, painted by Gaetano Gandolfi in 177, while the main altar displays a canvas by Ercole Graziani (1688-1765) depicting the Birth of the Virgin Mary. The hamlet also hosts an oratory dedicated to the Holy Spirit and an incompleted bell tower which was begun in 1933 to provide the complex with one larger than that currently in function. The bell tower, as we can see in an ancient painting hanging in the sacristy, had a pyramidal tent roof at the end of the 17th century, a result of its reconstruction in 1673. In the centuries that followed, it was damaged and reconstructed many times. Struck by lightning in 1788, it was then given an octogonal spire. This was also damaged by lightning in 1842 and rebuilt two years later “to resemble how it was before 1788\". The panorama is breathtaking in its entirety.

  
• 

  SAN FRANCESCO

  The church of the Confortino, together with the oratory of Villa Pedrazzi, significantly demonstrates just how widespread the cult of the Saint of Assisi was throughout the local countryside in the 13th century. It was Confortino Conforti, the landowner of this territory that bears his name, who decreed in his 1294 will that a church dedicated to St. Francis be constructed on his property, along with a rectory and a monastery. Although the structure of the monastery has been greatly modified over time, traces of the original, late 13th century appearance of the church are still evident. It is still a rather austere-looking brick building with a gabled façade and a brick, ogee-arched doorway, an ornate diamond cornice surmounted by a false protiro (covered porch entry). In June of 2009 restoration work involving the entire building and the wooden altarpiece was completed. The restoration work has brought to life some significant fragments of frescoes which had long been hidden on the northside of the building. The first one on the left when you enter by the main doorway, from the 14th century, shows what remains of the figure of a man perusing a book, obliterated by a frame on top of it. The second shows an iconographic image of Christ being supported by angels, attributed to the late 15th century. Over the main altar we find a 18th century Sacred Conversation, painted on wood in the 16th century style.

  
• 

  SAN FRANCESCO ORATORY

  Just outside of town, where urban noise gives way to placid country quiet, stands one of the oldest churches in the world dedicated to Saint Francis of Assisi. According to tradition, the Saint himself is said to have preached in this lovely place. There are records documenting the existence of this church from as far back as 1232. If we consider that St. Francis had died only six years earlier, that construction had barely begun on the basilica in Assisi and that the large Bolognese church in his honor would not be built for another four years (1236), we better appreciate just how far ahead of its time this humble, delicate oratory in Crespellano was, with its austere romanesque lines, gabled façade, ogee-arched portal, small, round, stained-glass window and sequence of blind arches running across the top and right side of the building. Adjacent to the oratory is the structure originally designed as a convent, but later used as a country mansion. Inside we find a valuable relic and a curious, wooden statue of the Madonna, known in the local dialect as “la Madona d’i spuncioun” (the spiked Madonna). At the end of the 19th century, the property was purchased by the Pedrazzi family, and later bequeathed to the Little Sisters of Our Lady of Sorrows.

  
• 

  SAN ROCCO ORATORY

  The Oratory of Saint Roch, whose origins can be traced to 1468, was originally set up within the Castle of Crespellano as an Institute for the Order of St. Roch. The church was originally the seat of the Order of St. Roch and St. Sebastian, a mutual aid society aimed at assisting hospitals, constituted in 1500. The society carried out its activities both inside the church, as a place of public worship, and also throughout the 18th century in the “Pilgrims' Hospital,” which still stands next to the complex. The church and the oratory constituted the headquarters of the Order of St. Roch until the Napoleonic suppression, and then of the Order of the Holy Sacrament until just before World War II. In 1790, as the structure was showing signs of instability, moving the oratory to a site beside the church, on the ground floor, was considered. It was in this period that the church itself was rennovated. Following the plundering of Napoleon, on May 14, 1799 the complex and its adjacent kitchen garden was purchased by the Garagnani family of Crespellano, who continued to use it for religious functions. The church's layout is harmonious: single-naved with a vaulted ceiling supported by pillars topped with composite capitals. The main altarpiece shows the Madonna surrounded by the “plague” saints: St. Roch, St. Carlo Borromeo and St. Sebastian. The lateral niches hold the relics of 118 saints.