The history of the Oratory of Sant’Omobono is related to the ancient Company of the Nativity of the Most Holy Mary, known as the Blues (“Azzurri”) for the color of the dress worn by its members, who had their headquarters in Piazza Castelvecchio.
In the second half of the 18th century, the Oratory was enlarged with a presbytery divided by columns, and surmounted by an elliptical dome. Even the construction of the bell tower can be placed between the end of the 17th century and the first half of the 18th century. The important reconstruction of the oratory dates back to the years 1776-1778, based on a project by Gasparo Maria Paoletti, who was responsible also for the construction of the presbytery preceded by columns and surmounted by an elliptical dome.
When the Grand Duke suppressed the lay companies in 1785, also the Azzurri were canceled and their oratory was assigned to the nearby Dominican monastery. Later, at the end of the century, the “Compagnia degli Azzurri” was reconstituted and united with the SS. Sacramento’s one under the invocation of Sant’Omobono.
The choir was built in 1802 and then decorated in 1850 by Pietro Alessio Chini (1800-1876). In 1804, a new bell was recast, the “Nevosa” and in 1813 the church was completely restored.
In the same year, the painter Pietro Paolo Colli (1768-1822) frescoed the dome of the presbytery, depicting Our Lady of the Assumption in heaven, probably helped by his very young pupil Pietro Alessio Chini, to whom was entrusted the decoration of the interior walls in 1850 in collaboration with Angiolo Romagnoli.
In 1889, following a donation from the Marquis Filippo Negrotto Cambiaso, the two side stone altars were placed, coming from the suppressed church of S. Francesco.
Abandoned for half a century, it was restored at the beginning of 2000 and entrusted to the worship for cultural initiatives.
The gabled façade, restored in 1925, has a stone portal with a broken tympanum and a cartouche above; there is also a large rectangular window surmounted by a coat of arms of the company.
The interior has a single nave and the trussed ceiling replaces the vault decorated with geometric shapes. Two large columns in imitation of marble, on which the access arch stands, frame the presbytery surmounted by the hemispherical dome. On the main altar, there is a canvas with a blue background depicting small angels and cherubs; in the center, a niche houses a Madonna and Child (2003), a ceramic work that replaces the original “Madonna degli Azzurri”, which, following a restoration carried out by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence, disclosed from dirt and heavy repainting a splendid late thirteenth-century painting, unanimously attributed to Giotto’s youthful production, and now housed in the Pieve of San Lorenzo.
On the counter façade, you can see a window with a polychrome stained glass depicting the Madonna della Pace, work and gift of the Chini Manufacture. The work depicts the Virgin Mary seated on a throne, the lamb on her lap and an olive branch in her right hand. At the bottom, there is the grill of San Lorenzo and in the cartouche there is the inscription: “Fornaci San Lorenzo-Chini e C-settembre 1925”.
The entrance compass, in wood and glass, is a work designed by Dino Chini and dates back to 1926; the painted glass panels, with coats of arms and decorative elements, are from the production of the Chini Manufacture.
Recently, the transportable organ was placed on the choir of the oratory, built in 1778 by the brothers Benedetto and Luigi Tronci; it came from the facing chapel of the monastery of Santa Caterina.
Coming from the church of San Francesco, there are two paintings by the painter Pietro Paolo Colli, made around 1813 and placed above the two side altars: the one on the right depicts “Sant’Omobono”, the one on the left the “St. Joseph Transit”. Under the table of the right altar and protected by a stained-glass window from the Fornaci San Lorenzo in 1925, there is a Deposed Christ made of polychrome plaster in 1890 by Bruno Ravagli.
On the left wall of the nave there is a work in polychrome majolica, the Holy Family, made by Galileo Chini in 1903, when he was part of the “Manifattura dell’Arte della Ceramica”; it was placed here in 2007, and previously was in the small chapel of the Foundation Umberto I of Borgo San Lorenzo; this was flanked by a mural painting, by Galileo as well, depicting groups of people. On the right wall of the presbytery was placed in 2009 a polychrome terracotta tondo depicting a Madonna and Child by the Chini Manufacture of the San Lorenzo Furnaces.
Near the side entrance, on the left wall, there is a marble plaque (1919) dedicated to the brothers of the Compagnia degli Azzurri who died in the war. On the opposite wall, near the presbytery, there is a polychrome ceramic plaque by the Chini Manufacture in 1925, and dedicated to the three employees of the San Lorenzo furnaces who died in the Great War.
The windows on the left side of the Oratory and the compass bear glass tiles with marbling and geometric decorations in deco-style lozenges, with some coats of arms of the Confraternity of Sant’Omobono, also referable to the interventions of the Chini Manufacture for its restoration in the mid-twenties of the twentieth century.
© Il Filo – Idee e Notizie dal Mugello
