The Oratory of Santa Cecilia
“A dive into a magical, hidden place.”
If you enjoy intimate, secluded spaces, far from the noise of the outside world, with an atmosphere that seems frozen in time, the Oratory of Santa Cecilia is the place for you. Let’s walk down Via Zamboni and venture into the university district, where a remarkable pictorial cycle lies hidden. It is of such great importance to the city’s artistic history that some have called it the most significant cycle of the Bolognese Renaissance or, in more grandiose terms, the “Sistine Chapel of Bologna”. Sheltered beneath a low barrel-vaulted ceiling, the frescoes unfold along the oratory’s side walls. A series of ten paintings, created between 1505 and 1506, depicting episodes from the lives of Saint Cecilia and her husband Valerian. Among the artists commissioned to create these frescoes by Giovanni II Bentivoglio, Lord of Bologna, were Francesco Francia, Lorenzo Costa and Amico Aspertini, some of the most renowned painters at the Bentivoglio court at the time. If you’d like to discover more, pay it a little visit. And, if you’re lucky, you might meet a charming gentleman who will guide you through the paintings, taking you on a wonderful journey back in time, through stories of saints, noble courts and ancient artistic traditions. Oratory of Santa Cecilia Via Zamboni 15
