San Rocco Oratory in Torre di Palme is located near a panoramic balcony with a unique view of the entire Adriatic coast and of Marche’s hills.
The building dates back to the 14th-15th century. It has a beautiful sixteenth-century portal dated 1523. Shortly after it is advisable to stop at the panoramic balcony from which you can enjoy an exceptional view, with the beautiful Adriatic coast in front and on the left and right the gentle hills of the Marche. The ancient portal is still visible on the west side and demonstrates, together with the apse, that the building was originally oriented.
The Oratory was owned by the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, whose existence is documented in archival sources at least until the XV century. It was then expropriated, as the vegetable garden and the garden that today constitute Amedeo Lattanzi Square – also called Belvedere – in the processes that took place during the Unification of Italy. Above the entrance portal there is a coat of arms of Lateran, since the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament was associated to the homonymy of San Giovanni in Laterano and therefore under the patronage of the Lateral Canons. The stony seal was put at the time of pope Clemence VII (pontificate 1523-1534) as recalled by the pontifical seal by Pius VI of 1790.
The simple structure in bricks shows a little apsis in the East, a bell gable and an architraves gate, bearing the emblem of Torre di Palme and the date MDXIII (1523): the restoration works that lead to the opening of the gate on the square, to the demolition of the ceiling with cross-shaped vaults – whose traces are still visible in the internal masonry – and to the trusses covering you can find today probably date back to that year.
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