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Church of St Roch in Monte San Biagio: a small church, the confraternity and the plague
The Church of San Rocco is located in Monte San Biagio, in southern Lazio. Built in 1100, it is a very old church, with a single, short nave, an altar, choir, and a small sacristy on the side. It stores traces of an intense history, shaped by the veneration of saints, epidemics, and radical transformations.
A structure that lost an entire floor
The original building was laid out on two tiers. On the upper floor, the confraternity of "prayer and death" used to gather. It was a group that helped to bury the poor who had died of plague. The names of confraternity members were written directly on the upper walls of the church, alongside a painting of a local Roman temple. In 1881, the upper level was demolished to build the present-day Town Hall, which previously served as a carabinieri barracks. It was a curious fate for a place of prayer.
Between town gates and old prisons
The church had a simple gabled roof and a slender bell tower. Just a few steps away is one of the town's three gateways, the gate of Sant'Antonio Abate (St Anthony Abbot) and San Rocco. Next to the church there was also a small prison, which was active in the 1800s.
