Madonna della Salute
The church dedicated to All Saints arose within the Polcenigo castle village in 1371, acquiring in the following century the parish status previously belonging to San Giovanni.
The delicate fresco depicting the Madonna nursing, now located inside the church of San Giacomo, dates back to the time of construction.
Towards the end of the 1500s, radical renovation works changed its original orientation, moving the apse to the west and the entrance to the east. The unfortunate position of the sacred building, a few steps from the road and the main square of the village, the absence of a churchyard and cemetery, as well as the insufficient size to accommodate a growing number of faithful, led to the loss of parish status in 1770 in favor of the nearby San Giacomo.
At the beginning of the 1800s, the church of All Saints changed its title to Blessed Virgin of Health, perhaps connected to the faithful's appeal against recurring epidemic diseases. In 1931, there was also a painting of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary inside, which Bishop Luigi Paulini ordered to be moved to San Rocco: it is perhaps the 18th-century painting now preserved in the sacristy of San Giacomo.
In 1937, the parish priest, to solve traffic problems, decided to renew and smooth the facade of the oratory, commissioning architect Domenico Rupolo to prepare the project, which was then concretely realized by the Polcenigo engineer Pietro Bazzi.
In the same year, the sculptor Giuseppe Scalambrin from Fossalta di Portogruaro created the wooden statue of the Madonna della Salute. To complete the renovation of the church, a new main altar arrived from the cathedral of Sacile, still visible today.
On February 2, 1945, a wood and coal depot caught fire, and the flames spread to the nearby sacred building, causing the collapse of the main altar and destroying the sacristy, which was rebuilt in the early 1950s.
After the 1976 earthquake, the church was closed to worship due to severe damage to the masonry and roof. It was once again returned to the devotion of the faithful and the curiosity of many tourists after the radical restoration of 1994-95, which revealed, among other things, the presence of three niches of splayed windows with a full arch on the wall facing the Gorgazzo and the plan of the first oratory, smaller than the current building.
In the plaster of the facade, framed by two pilasters, an appropriate beveling specifies the height of the ancient church; the restorations also highlighted a central rose window larger than that of the 20th-century building.
On the entrance portal, framed in stone and surmounted by a projecting cornice, is placed a stone coat of arms of the counts of Polcenigo and Fanna.
The interior is a single nave, without a presbytery, with a truss ceiling; the holy water font, a stone artifact probably dating back to the 17th century, arouses some interest. The baroque main altar in polychrome marbles houses the aforementioned wooden statue by Scalambrin, fortunately spared from the 1945 fire.
Excerpt from “Le chiese di Polcenigo” by Alessandro Fadelli, taken from borgocreativopolcenigo.it