Madonna di Caravaggio Oratory - Calghera

The first news about this Oratory are reported in a manuscript from 1812, written by the then Archpriest Don Agostino Castelli, parish priest of S. Albano since 1783.
Dedicated to San Felice Pope and Martyr, the oratory was left in neglect and abandonment for many years and became dilapidated. It was Monsignor Maggi, Vicar of the Diocese, who in a pastoral visit in 1881, ordered the restoration to be completed within a year. However, since it was a private oratory, it was not possible to restore it to worship.
At the beginning of 1900, the building was used as a barn. Rebuilt almost from scratch, on the initiative of the parish priest Don Giacinto Pugni, with the contribution of the local villagers and in particular of Mrs. Angela Marenzi, it was reopened for worship in 1924 and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin of Caravaggio. Inside, an evocative plaque reads:

"Built as a barn by the ancient landowners of Calghera, the Marenzi family, it was then restored in 1628 by Mrs. Angela Balma Marenzi who changed its use, making it an oratory. Consecrated in the same year and dedicated to the Madonna of Caravaggio, it had the possibility of always being officiated thanks to the kindness of the parish priests of the nearby parishes: Valverde, Torre degli Alberi and Sant'Albano to whose parish the oratory belongs.
In 1965, Mrs. Marenzi's granddaughter, Carla Morassi, donated her oratory to the population of Calghera so that everyone would take care of it and in the future prevent anyone from changing its use. It was precisely in this period that the parish priest of Sant'Albano, Mons. Davide Monteverdi, restored it for the second time, embellishing it and giving it its current appearance.
On the front of the oratory appears the writing: Greet the One who blesses from Heaven"

Inside, it is worth highlighting

• in the presbytery a painting on canvas dated 1922, by an anonymous artist, depicts the apparition of the Madonna of Caravaggio to a commoner. The work depicts the Virgin in a sublime context typical of her iconographic tradition.
• in a niche placed above the architrave of the presbytery wall, a marble bust from the mid-twentieth century, by an anonymous artist, depicts Beatrice Marenzi Morassi, daughter of the benefactor Angela Balma Marenzi. The sculpture, of excellent artistic school, made in forms of essential naturalism, portrays the young woman with her gaze fixed forward and her puffed hair gathered at the nape of her neck

Today in the oratory religious services are celebrated for the suffrage of the deceased and on the anniversary of the Blessed Virgin of Caravaggio.