The church of Saints Ursula and Elizabeth was built at Sommariva del Bosco in the early seventeenth century, in the baroque style, and was consecrated to Saint Ursula and Saint Elizabeth of Hungary. About its construction, and about that of the confraternity known as the Orsole to which it belonged, historical information is scarce: it is one of those churches you come to know better by looking at than by reading about.
What to see
Outside you can make out a complex play of horizontal and vertical planes which, crossing, generate a quantity of rectangular forms. Above there are niches left empty, surmounted by small triangular pediments, and a round-arched window with a half-moon pediment between false half-columns; below, the arched entrance, surmounted by a painting of Saint Ursula and Saint Angela Merici, framed by pairs of false half-columns with capitals of Ionic inspiration.
Visiting
You enter through a carved wooden portal and go down two steps. Inside, the vertical thrust is accentuated by the piers set against the walls, which carry the eye up to the point where the entablature meets the curves of the ceiling. The decoration is entirely geometric: coffers with rosettes, Greek frets, blue amphorae with gilded garlands, false marbles on the arches that divide the vault into three parts, each frescoed. A small stone stair leads to the wooden pulpit and to a room above the sacristy.
Our editors' tip
That room above the sacristy is the detail that says most. It was the meeting place of the women and girls enrolled in the confraternity: a room of their own, inside a church, for a village women's association of the seventeenth century. It is worth wondering who climbed up there and what was talked about. Today the church is deconsecrated and periodically hosts art shows and exhibitions; every third Sunday in May it holds Rosa Rosae, a competitive show of roses from the town's gardens, where the finest rose is given to the youngest inhabitant of Sommariva and the most elegant arrangement to the oldest.
