This oratory was cut in two. After the second world war the interior was dismantled and a wall was put up separating the presbytery from the rest: on one side a small chapel remained, on the other the hall became a space for recreational activities. One building, two trades, and neither of them is the one it was built for.
What to see
The building is of the mid eighteenth century, perhaps on an older oratory, and is the seat of the confraternity of Saint Sebastian. The original plan was a single nave with a square presbytery and a barrel vault; the internal half-pillars have stucco capitals with acanthus leaves.
Outside you can still see the eighteenth-century layout: the windows and the rose window have square frames set inside trilobed openings, that is the old shape containing the new one. On the front, between the rose window and the door, there was a painting that time has almost erased.
Visiting
The oratory is beside the parish church, in the centre of Rialto, in the hinterland of Finale Ligure; access depends on the activities of the confraternity and of the community. A quarter of an hour.
Our editors' tip
Look at it first from outside and then from inside, and notice that the two do not match. From outside it is still a whole church, with its front and its rose window; inside there are two rooms separated by a wall. It is the commonest condition of Italian religious buildings today, and almost nobody describes it: the shell says one thing, the use says another.