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Church of Mercy

Church of Mercy

The church of San Biagio is a Catholic place of worship in the historic center of Pietrasanta, in the province of Lucca; it is also known as the church of Mercy as it is seat of the local confraternity of Mercy.

Already dedicated to San Biagio, the church was the seat of a Company that assisted the condemned and foundlings and which, in 1896, was transformed into the Confraternity of Mercy.

There are two wooden sculptures depicting Sant’Antonio Abate and San Biagio, attributed respectively to Antonio Pardini and Jacopo della Quercia. The statues are considered to be among the highest quality works that were produced in the Lucca area between the end of the 14th century and the beginning of the 15th century.

Noteworthy among others are the Coronation of the Virgin and Saints (1550) by Lorenzo Cellini, the elegant eighteenth-century choir loft with pipe organ from the early 19th century (expanded in 1860 by Odoardo Landucci), and the wall paintings in the chapel of the Addolorata attributed to Luigi Ademollo.

From 1993 are the two large fresco panels, the Gate of Paradise and the Gate of Hell, the work of Fernando Botero, a Colombian artist who for a few months a year he usually resides in the town of Versilia.