Chiesa di San Filippo Neri

San Filippo Neri in Camerino is an eighteenth-century Oratorian church with an elongated elliptical interior and a brick-and-limestone facade. Its artistic history includes an altarpiece commissioned from Giovanni Battista Tiepolo in 1740.

Why it matters

The church gives architectural form to the development of the Filippini congregation in Camerino. Its plan and decoration connect local patronage with wider currents in eighteenth-century Italian sacred art.

What to notice

Pale stone details articulate the brick facade, whose two orders are joined by curved elements and crowned by a curved pediment. Communicating side chapels accompany the elliptical nave, with a deep apse beyond the presbytery. Tiepolo's altarpiece depicts the Virgin and Child appearing to San Filippo Neri; a copy after Guercino and works by Luigi Domenico Valeri also belong to the church's artistic history.

Context and history

The Oratorians established themselves in Camerino in the late sixteenth century and received papal recognition in 1600. Pietro Maria Loni's project for the new church was approved in 1733, followed by construction and decoration. The bell tower of 1746 fell in the earthquake of 1799. Further seismic damage in 2016 made conservation another major chapter in the building's history.