Oratory of the Santissima Annunziata

The Oratory of the Santissima Annunziata lies in the small hamlet of Biestro, a kilometre or so from Pallare's centre. Built in 1580, it is older and more interesting than the village's parish church, with frescoes on the interior walls and a painting attributed to the school of Guido Reni. The oratory is a compact stone building with a simple facade that gives no hint of the decorated interior.

Opening hours are irregular and it is often locked — your best chance of gaining entry is to ask in the village or visit on a Sunday morning. Even if closed, the hamlet of Biestro itself is worth the short walk for its handful of old stone houses and the views down the Val Bormida.

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A story
The painting inside the oratory has been attributed by some art historians to the school of Guido Reni, the Bolognese master whose graceful, idealised figures were enormously influential in early 17th-century Italian painting. Whether the attribution holds or not, the oratory itself — built in 1580 and largely unchanged since — is a rare survival of a complete rural Ligurian baroque interior in a valley that saw little subsequent development.