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The Oratory of Saint Lawrence () is a 
Baroque
The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...
oratory of Palermo
Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...
. It is located near the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi
The Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi (; ) is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Order of Friars Minor Conventual in Assisi, a town in the Umbria region in central Italy, where Saint Francis was born and died. It is a papal minor basilica ...
, in the quarter of the Kalsa
Kalsa or Mandamento Tribunali is a historical quarter of the Italian city of Palermo in Sicily. It is sometimes referred to as la Kalsa or the Kalsa.
Names
The common name of the quarter, ''Kalsa'', derives from the district's historic Arabic ...
, within the historic centre of Palermo.
The oratory was built in 1569 to replace a former smaller church dedicated to St Lawrence
Saint Lawrence or Laurence (; 31 December 225 – 10 August 258) was one of the seven deacons of the city of Rome under Pope Sixtus II who were martyred in the persecution of the Christians that the Roman emperor Valerian ordered in 258.
...
. Construction was funded by a confraternity of mainly Genovese merchants, and linked to Conventual Franciscan
The Order of Friars Minor Conventual (O.F.M. Conv.) is a male religious fraternity in the Catholic Church and a branch of the Franciscan Order. Conventual Franciscan Friars are identified by the affix O.F.M. Conv. after their names. They are ...
s. In 1699-1706, Giacomo Serpotta
Giacomo Serpotta (10 March 1656 – 27 February 1732) was an Italian sculptor, active in a Rococo style and mainly working in stucco.
Biography
Serpotta was born and died in Palermo; and may have never left Sicily. His skill and facility with st ...
realized a sumptuous stucco decoration, depicting the life of St Francis.
The oratory is particularly famous because of the masterpiece altarpiece '' Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence'' (1600 or 1609) by Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (also Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi da Caravaggio; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), known mononymously as Caravaggio, was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the fina ...
. This important painting was stolen, probably by ''Cosa Nostra
The Sicilian Mafia or Cosa Nostra (, ; "our thing"), also referred to as simply Mafia, is a criminal society and criminal organization originating on the island of Sicily and dates back to the mid-19th century. Emerging as a form of local protect ...
'', on October 18, 1969. It has never been recovered. In 2015 a hi-tech replica of the altarpiece was placed inside the oratory.
References
Lorenzo Baroque architecture in Palermo 16th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Italy {{Sicily-RC-church-stub