Saint Catherine of Siena, returning from Avignon in 1376, is said to have been a guest in Genoa of the noblewoman Orietta Centurione Scotto: from then on the Centurione considered her their protectress. That is why in 1641 the princes Luigi and Carlo dedicated to her the new church and the new parish of Gorreto.
What to see
The interior has a single nave, with four niches along the sides. On the high altar a high relief shows the saint receiving confession from the blessed Raymond of Capua, who was her confessor and her biographer; in the apse hangs an eighteenth-century canvas of the Madonna della Misericordia. The confessionals, in inlaid wood, date from the fifteenth century.
Visiting
The church stands on via Capoluogo, in the middle of Gorreto, and belongs to the diocese of Piacenza-Bobbio. It was consecrated only in 1786, a century and a half after the dedication, and the archbishop of Genoa Giovanni Lercari came to do it. The parish also has under it the oratory of Santa Maria Assunta at Pissino and that of Nostra Signora Ausiliatrice at Campomolino.
Our editors' tip
Look for the confessionals: their carving dates from the fifteenth century, which makes them older than the church that holds them.