Oratorio di Santa Cecilia

Religious buildings

Bologna

Along the portico on the side of the church of S. Giacomo Maggiore, in the via Zamboni, we find the entrance to the Oratory of St.Cecilia and Valeriano. It comes from an old romanic church commissioned by Giovanni 2nd of Bentivoglio, lord of Bologna. It was made smaller and completely frescoed to preserve the most important paintings of the Bolognese Renaissance. The paintings, started in 1505, were entrusted to the most well-known artists of the Bentivoglio court, such as Francesco Francia, Lorenzo Costa and Amico Aspertini, and they were completed by less famous artists. The frescoes cover the right and left walls at the oratory entrance. In ten panels, divided by pilaster strips decorated grotesque, events of St. Cecily's life and her husband Valeriano are described. They are set at the age of Urbano 2nd (3rd cent. ), when the saints became martyrs because they did not recant their Christian faith.