Occupying the characteristic Piazza Vecchia (also called Piazza del Mercato), this oratory dates from the tenth century and was the town's original parish church, dedicated to Saint Nicholas. Restructured in the baroque era, its nave and two aisles are built with columns of local stone. Inside, it preserves oil measures from the Republic of Genoa and the remains of a medieval well that once stood in the square outside. Today it functions as an auditorium.
Oratory of the Bianchi
10th-century oratory on Piazza Vecchia, now a baroque-era auditorium
A story
The bell in the campanile is said to have been rung by the hand of St. Nicholas himself to announce the end of Pietra Ligure's plague outbreak in 1525 — a tradition the town has maintained ever since.