In 2016 a libeccio storm seriously damaged the fresco on the vault of this oratory. Not a slow leak, not damp: a sea storm. At Bogliasco the sea is not scenery, it is a force that reaches inside buildings, and the restoration of that vault was only completed in the summer of 2023.
What to see
The fresco is by Oldoino Multedo and dates from the end of the nineteenth century. The oratory is the seat of the confraternity of Santa Chiara, founded at the beginning of the fifteenth century, most probably on the wave of the passage of the Bianchi of Provence: in 1399 that penitential movement crossed Italy in procession, and wherever it passed it left new confraternities behind.
Numerous sixteenth-century notarial acts speak of the congregation's existence and activities. In 1582 an apostolic visit found the building and its furnishings in good condition; shortly afterwards, in the first half of the seventeenth century, the oratory was rebuilt from scratch and enlarged.
Visiting
The oratory is in via Mazzini, in the centre of Bogliasco, on the eastern riviera just outside Genoa; it is a confraternity seat, so it opens for services and for its activities. A quarter of an hour.
Our editors' tip
Look at the restored vault and then step out to see the sea, which is a few metres away. The libeccio is the south-west wind, the one that on this coast comes head on and raises the worst storms. Knowing that this wind ruined a painting indoors is the quickest way to understand what kind of place a Ligurian seaside village is.