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Church of San Nicolò

Slightly secluded from the actual center of the village, it remains secluded beyond the vault and overlooks what was once the Main Street. The exterior appearance of the building, as sober as ever, is the result, as is the interior, of a continuous reworking of the structure to meet the demographic growth that has affected the village in past centuries. The current result is the fruit of the last major overhaul in the mid-eighteenth century of a building undoubtedly present in the fifteenth century when documents indicate a parish church, called Santa Maria in Insula, located at an elevated point that guaranteed refuge from the frequent flooding of the Oglio River.

The building had to adapt to an urban plan that did not anticipate its expansion, and therefore the church of San Nicolò presents the anomaly of the main entrance on the longer side, which faced the main street.

Upon entering, the faithful will find themselves in front of the altar of the Virgin and not the apse area. The latter, in the mid-1700s, was enriched with stained glass windows hosting the figures of Saint Nicholas the Bishop and Saint Catherine, the dome, the choir, and the splendid organ of the Montesanti school.

The presence of religious brotherhoods in the village has allowed the acquisition of some important works from disused places of worship. This is the case of the Madonna in glory among Saints Dominic and Pius V by Camillo Procaccino, a work present in the apse.

Among the pictorial works of our church, the highlight is undoubtedly the Ecce Homo by Bernardino Campi, painted on-site in 1575 and placed on the altar patronized by the Gonzaga family.

The inhabitants of the village also show great affection for the work now securely attributed to Altobello Melone: the Annunciation or Madonna of the Cat. The painting interprets the theme of the Annunciation to the Virgin with a more intimate, more domestic setting without detracting from the intensity and solemnity of the moment represented, thanks to a skillful use of light and shadow.

Further noteworthy elements in the church are the altars with splendid marble inlays of eighteenth-century Brescian school and wooden statues among which stands out the representation of the Virgin attributed to the sculptor Bertesi.

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