Saint Catherine’s Church

viviardesio tempio di santa caterina affreschi
Una delle due lunette raffiguranti la Vergine con S. Caterina d’Alessandria, S. Chiara e gli offerenti. Data 1522.

At the top of the Municipality, there is the little square of Largo Riccardi, at first named after St. Catherine. Here, in fact, already in the XVth century, there was a temple dedicated to the saint from Siena.

This was the church of the convent of the Dominican nuns, but at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it changed destination and was used as a Retirement Home (now Filisetti Hospital). It is not known when the religious community started to work. Nonetheless, at the time of the visit of Carlo Borromeo in 1575, the nuns were already reunited in Gergamo in the convent of the Order, the church was in disarray and the rest passed to private individuals. In fact, on the documents related to the visit of the Holy Bishop, one can read that the church was always open and full of rubbish and the main altar was all dirty.

During the restructuring of the Retirement Home, there were remains of a small bell tower and two portals with a fresco of two small moons. Today, one can notice the two marble shoulders of the ancient entrance to the church, which date back to the date of construction of 1522.

The two small moons each represent something: the one in the middle represents the Virgin with St. Catherine d’Alessandria, St. Chiara and the bidders; the one to the side represents Christ with the cross.