In Peschiera Maraglio, in the Oratory of San Rocco (St. Roch) adjacent to the parish church, you can find a cycle of mural paintings of very high quality and of great interest. The cycle extends to the ceiling on three of the walls in a fairly large size room (4.30 x 3.20 m) which repeats the representation of some male figures immersed in landscape scenery bordered by faux marble pillars and an upper entablature with grotesque friezes. The south/east wall, the best preserved, shows St. Sebastian, St. Roch and a saint, perhaps Pantaleon, on a spectacular lake background framed by the false architecture. On the south/west wall, very damaged and partly compromised by the opening of a window, there is a male figure standing in the doorway of a building with his left hand stretched forward, and his right holding a blue headwear. On the north/east wall you can see St. Roch, probably kneeling down at the edge of a forest. Above the frieze on the south/east wall, which would seem to be the main one, there is a painting of two angels in flight, while at the centre of the frieze there is a scroll with traces of an inscription that is longer decipherable. On the façade of the parish church there is a 17th Century wall inscription that recalls the votive festivals of the Saints Sebastian, Pantaleon and Roch from which we have the possible identification of the third saint to whom the cycle with Pantaleon would be dedicated.

The paintings, almost unknown today, mainly because of the difficult access to the site, are attributed to Girolamo Romanino according to Vincenzo Gheroldi. The scholar subsequently inserted the works in the rather unknown panorama of the artistic works from Brescia between the end of the first and beginning of the second decade of the 16th Century. The proposal, based on a series of cross-checks on technical evaluations and stylistic comparisons assessments, still requires further investigation. If today’s considerations are confirmed by specific studies, the artistic evidence at Peschiera Maraglio would constitute, along with the paintings of San Pietro (St. Peter) in Tavernola Bergamasca [130], a fundamental document on mural painting of the early 16th Century.

Sara Marazzani

For further information:

GHEROLDI V., Romanino “bonissimo pratico”. Forme di ricezione e tecniche di pittura murale, in Romanino un Pittore in rivolta nel Rinascimento italiano, catalogo della mostra (Trento, Castello del Buonconsiglio, 29 luglio – 29 ottobre 2006), a cura di CAMERLENGO L., CHINI E., FRANGI F., DE GRAMATICA F., Cinisello Balsamo (Mi) 2006.