Chiesa della Misericordia

The <strong>church of San Biagio</strong> is a Catholic place of worship in the historic center of Pietrasanta, in the province of Lucca; it is also called the <strong>church of the Misericordia</strong> as it is the <strong>headquarters of the local brotherhood of the Misericordia.</strong> 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 <strong>two wooden sculptures</strong> depicting <strong>Saint Anthony the Abbot and Saint Blaise,</strong> attributed respectively to <strong>Antonio Pardini and Jacopo della Quercia</strong>. 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.</strong> Worthy of note among others are <strong>the Coronation of the Virgin and saints</strong> (1550) by <strong>Lorenzo Cellini</strong>, the elegant eighteenth-century choir with <strong>pipe organ</strong> > from the early 19th century (expanded in 1860 by Odoardo Landucci), and the <strong>wall paintings of the chapel</strong> of the Addolorata attributed to Luigi Ademollo.</strong> From 1993 are the two large <strong>fresco panels,</strong> the<strong>Gate of Paradise and the Gate of Hell</strong>, the work of Fernando <strong>Botero</strong>, a Colombian artist who for a few months of the year he usually resides in the Versilia town.