Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary

Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary

The parish of Albettone has been dedicated to the Nativity of the Virgin since the middle of the fifteenth century. In fact, in the 1452 report of the pastoral visit by Bishop Barbo, the new church subject to the parish church of Barbarano is mentioned. Unfortunately, we do not know much about its original structure and what we know is thanks to cartography. The sacred building, as evidenced by a 1693 map and by the Austrian land register, had a different orientation compared to the current one. It was common for ancient churches to have a west-facing façade and an east apse. Around the church on the north side, there was the bell tower and the rectory and the cemetery towards the side of the Castellaro slope. By the nineteenth century, the precarious conditions the church was in made necessary for the parish priest don Pietro Dall’Olmo to build the current church. Initially, it was thought to enlarge the old church, but soon this project was put aside because the proposal to create a new building prevailed. Therefore, the architect Federico Castegnaro of Vicenza was entrusted with the task of drafting the executive design project. On the 7th of November 1869, the first stone of the new building was laid. The work proceeded with such rapidity that, after 14 months, on the 19th of January 1871 the new church was blessed and opened for worship. Inside the new church there are side chapels with altars dedicated to the Virgin (17th century) and the Madonna del Rosario (1696) on the left wall and to San Luigi Gonzaga (19th century), to Sant’Antonio da Padova (1718), to the Sacro Cuore (1923) on the right wall. Above the main altar, there is a seventeenth-century curved altarpiece by the Venetian painter Andrea Celesti (1637-1712). This altarpiece depicts the Trinity between two saints and has been quite recently donated to the church by a fellow citizen.

Photo of the inside on page 256