Oratory of Saints Lorenzo and Marco dei Battuti

The Confraternity of Santa Maria dei Battuti, so called because of the public procession in which the participants beat each other with a scourge or discipline, gave the mandate to erect the Oratory of Saints Lorenzo and Marco. Inside this impressive building, one can admire a cycle of frescoes painted in the first half of the 15th century by various artists, belonging to the so-called 'devotional Gothic' style. Prominent among the painted works are a Crucifixion (on the altar), the Stories of St Lorenzo and the Stories of St Marco that run along the walls, and the four Evangelists and Doctors of the Church that adorn the vaults of the two bays. Over the centuries, the Oratory has gone through many vicissitudes, the most sensational of which was when in 1797, during the Napoleonic occupation, it was used as a field kitchen. The windows were later enlarged, resulting in the loss of part of the interior decoration and the transformation of the last bay to create the 'Clock Tower' in place of the old 'Porta San Lorenzo'.