San Felice Parish Church: Art, Restorations, and Architectural Heritage
In the inhabited harvest of San Felice, the parish church dedicated to Saints Felice and Adauto stands out for its remarkable size. The current building is the result of reconstruction, carried out by decree of Bishop Giustiniani in 1749, based on a project by architect Antonio Corbellini, which draws on the design already used for the parish church of Coccaglio, with the only difference being the curved pediment instead of a triangular one. The interior resembles the plan of the parish church of Orzivecchi, featuring a Greek cross layout and large volumes developed beneath the central vault.
The founding of the church, as documented in a publication by Tavella, a former provost of San Felice, is attributed to Teodolinda, wife of the Lombard king Agilulfo. She supposedly arrived in this Garda area along with Bishop Felice of Brescia, from whom the name of the town and the religious building derive. While this episode is surrounded by many legendary details, it is certain that a place of worship existed by the 14th century, at which time the baptismal font was granted in 1432.
Restorations and Lost Works of Art
The rebuilding of the parish church led to the irreparable loss of a cycle of frescoes painted by Romanino in the old presbytery, depicting the martyrdom of the two saints, the idols toppled by Saint Felice’s breath, and the pagans hindered by demons as they attempted to unearth their bodies. On the other hand, a painting by the same artist, depicting Saints Felice, Adauto, Anthony the abbot, John the Evangelist, and Gennaro (though the iconographic attribution of the latter is uncertain), is still preserved on the main altar in oil on canvas.
Both the lost frescoes and the canvas — whose attribution to Romanino is disputed by some critics — are datable, based on documents kept in the San Felice municipal archive. These documents record payments to the Brescia-based painter during the period between 1532 and 1536.
Other noteworthy examples of painting that are still visible on the side altars of the 18th-century church include the altarpiece on the third right altar, attributed correctly to Pietro Ricchi (1606–1675). It depicts the Coronation of the Virgin and Saints Nicholas of Bari, Anthony of Padua, Apollonia, and Bernard of Clairvaux, and combines references to the artist’s youthful cultural influences with Raffaellesque quotations (such as Santa Cecilia in the Bologna Pinacoteca). A 17th-century painting with the Madonna and Saint Rocco adorns the similarly titled altar on the left wall, while in the sacristy are found a Madonna of the Rosary with Saints Dominic and Catherine of Siena and a delicate Nativity scene.
The first work bears the signature of Giovanni Andrea Bertanza. Its iconography gained popularity through devotion to the Madonna of Victory promoted by Pope Pius V in thanksgiving for the Battle of Lepanto (1571), an anniversary later dedicated to the Madonna of the Rosary. The nativity scene, originally located in the convent of Our Lady of Mount Carmel just outside San Felice, is attributed to the sixteenth-century artist Zenon Veronese.
The vaults of the refurbished parish church host frescoes by Carlo Innocenzo Carloni, originally from Scaria in the Val d’Intelvi, and his collaborator Giosuè Scotti, executed around 1760. They depict key episodes from the lives of Saints Felice and Adauto, including their martyrdom, burial, attempted kidnapping, canonization, and a miracle. The figures, almost levitating within the space of the domes, seem to further lighten the interior architecture and, along with the austere stuccoes, contribute to a diffuse luminosity, emphasizing the play of curves and recesses in the walls.
Furthermore, in the side chapels, the colorful marbles of the altars stand out, including the one dedicated to the Madonna of the Rosary, featuring a statue of the Virgin and fifteen panels depicting the Mysteries of the Rosary, framed in an ornate setting. Finally, it is worth mentioning, at the end of this brief overview of the church’s furnishings, the altar table: built in 1856 by Giovanni Emmanueli based on a design by Alessandro Sidoli. It consists of five Carrara marble bas-reliefs alternated with gilded bronze mirrors.
The carved stories reproduce, besides the key episodes of the saints’ lives, the moment when Angelo Moniga, a Benedictine monk, presents the relics of the two martyrs to the clergy of San Felice (right side), and Santa Flavia being led to the prison where Felice and Adauto are imprisoned (left side). Riccardo Bartoletti