Inside the small church of the Blessed Virgin of Mercy, known as “La Madonnella”, is a cycle of devotional frescoes of particular interest for the religious and artistic history of San Felice Circeo.
The church of the Blessed Virgin of Mercy holds very fine frescoes, sadly damaged by time and damp. Their dating is very approximate, but analysis of the painting places it in the 13th century.
The composition is divided into two main parts: in the first, the Redeemer, seated in a mandorla held up by angels, blesses with his right hand and holds a book in his left; the second depicts the Pietà. Here the Virgin sits at the foot of a large cross, wearing a long blue robe with an orange mantle, holding the lifeless body of her Son on her knees and gazing at him with intense but restrained grief, while He, serene in death, seems almost asleep. At the bottom left, a kneeling male figure with joined hands very probably represents the patron. Thanks to the partial recovery of a red inscription in the decoration, this man has been given the name “Yustiniano”. On either side of the Pietà are musician angels, originally three on each side and now only partly visible. At the ends are two saints: probably an Evangelist and Saint Anthony of Padua.
Experts’ opinions on the whole work vary and disagree: besides the uncertain dating, it is thought that several hands painted the different parts of the fresco. Detailed studies of the central Pietà have revealed similarities with the painting of the same subject in the Church of Santa Maria in Fondi, while the Redeemer resembles the one in the “Sezze panel”, both works by Giovanni da Gaeta. This has given rise to a theory that the fresco was painted no earlier than the mid-15th century, a theory also supported by a historical coincidence attributing the commission of the work to Onorato III Caetani of Sermoneta in 1473.
