The park and tabernacle of San Rocco.

On Via Chiannerina, where the SP 13 forks towards Castellina Marittima, there still stands a tabernacle dedicated to San Rocco , protector against the plague, today frescoed with a painting of the saint with his dog, by Vincenzo Marano Esposito.

First there was a chapel

According to the accounts recorded by don Stefani, a very small chapel dedicated to the saint was built on that spot towards the end of the 1600s. In 1703 the Capuchin friars, who were serving as missionaries in the town, organised a solemn procession which took this very chapel as one of its “stations”; a cross was also raised nearby, known as “Croce del Gaspero”.

The plague of the Promessi Sposi

The chapel seems to have come into being at the time of the terrible plague epidemic that Manzoni too writes about in the Promessi Sposi: the people of Riparbella are said to have turned to San Rocco with such devotion that the sickness did not last long. The last person struck down was found on the very spot where the tabernacle now stands, and for this reason it was decided to build a chapel dedicated to the saint there. During the epidemics around 1724 the chapel was used as a plague hospital, in addition to the one at the Madonna delle Grazie.

Ruin and rebuilding

It was then abandoned, fell into ruin and became a shelter for “the destitute”; by 1854 it was almost completely derelict. According to popular accounts, because the people of Riparbella had not looked after the chapel, San Rocco grew angry with them and did not protect them from the outbreaks of 1817, 1835 and 1855. In 1858 the remains of the old chapel were pulled down and the tabernacle you see today was built on the same spot.

Around the tabernacle, in the month of May, the park now called San Rocchino was opened: there is a playground, some of the artist benches and the car park at the northern entrance to the town. This is also the starting point of Trail no. 1 “Ripa Bella”, the loop around the town.