Chiesa della Misericordia

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 called the church of the Misericordia as it is the headquarters of the local brotherhood of the Misericordia. Already dedicated to San Biagio, the church was the headquarters of a Company that assisted the condemned and foundlings and which, in 1896, was transformed into the Confraternity of Mercy. There are preserved two wooden sculptures depicting Saint Anthony the Abbot and Saint Blaise, attributed respectively to Antonio Pardini and Jacopo della Quercia. The statues are considered among the highest quality works that were produced in the Lucca area between the end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth century. Worthy of note among others are the Coronation of the Virgin and saints (1550) by Lorenzo Cellini, the elegant eighteenth-century choir with pipe organ > from the early 19th century (expanded in 1860 by Odoardo Landucci), and the wall paintings of the chapel of the Addolorata attributed to Luigi Ademollo. From 1993 are the two large fresco panels, theGate of Paradise and the Gate of Hell, the work of Fernando Botero, a Colombian artist who for a few months of the year he usually resides in the Versilia town.