Above the altar hangs a canvas that brings together three subjects rarely painted in the same frame: the Immaculate Conception, Saint Philip Neri and Saint Anthony of Padua. It dates from the second half of the eighteenth century and it is the main reason to stop at the chapel of the Immaculate Conception, a small oratory in the locality of Contrada, in the hamlet of San Bernardo, on the hills of Stella.
What to see
The architecture is pared to the bone: a single nave, a barrel vault, a modest bell tower on the left flank, leaning against the sacristy. The chancel is closed off by wooden balustrades, and the altar is not marble but stone and lime, ordinary village building materials.
In the middle of the vault the same scene as the altarpiece was painted again during the nineteen-eighties. The comparison is immediate and worth the pause: two hands, two centuries apart, the same subject handled with different intentions.
Visiting
The chapel stands on the old road that linked Stella San Bernardo to Stella San Giovanni, before the traffic moved elsewhere. Mass is normally said here once a year, on 8 December, the feast of the Immaculate Conception: that is the day the door is open and the canvas can be seen close up. For the rest of the year it stays shut and you make do with the outside.
Our editors' tip
We go on 8 December, and we walk there along the old road: these are the same bends the parishioners took, and the approach explains the chapel better than any description. If you are in Stella at another time, asking at the parish in San Bernardo is the simplest way to try to get in.