When a convent closes, its things split into two fates: the building goes to the state and the statues go to the parish. That is what happened here too. The convent of the Annunziata at Rossiglione is today the town hall, while part of what it held — two seventeenth-century canvases, some crucifixes, a statue of the Immaculate Conception and a saint Anthony — ended up in this oratory.
What to see
The two sculptures that came from the convent are attributed to a Maragliano, the surname of the Genoese workshop that practically defined Ligurian devotional carving in wood. Belonging to the oratory itself are the seventeenth-century marble high altar, four eighteenth-century processional lanterns, a statue of the Immaculate Conception and two reliquary busts of holy bishops.
There are also two carved processional cases, one with the martyrdom of saint Catherine and one with the apparition of the Christ Child to saint Anthony of Padua. The building was put up in 1611, right after the consecration of the new parish church in 1609: the confraternity made itself a home as soon as the village had finished its church.
Visiting
The oratory is in via Oratorio, in the settlement of Rossiglione Superiore, in the Stura valley; it opens for services and for the confraternity's events, so it is worth asking. Twenty minutes.
Our editors' tip
Look for the four lanterns. They are tools, not ornaments: they served to light the procession, which means that procession went out in the dark. Try to picture the village without street lighting, the file moving through the night and four flames leading the way. It is the object that best gives the scene back.