The Mercuriali's chapel (Cappella Mercuriali) can be visited inside the romanic Abbey of San Mercuriale, in Forlì (Piazza Aurelio Saffi). The construction of the chapel was promoted by eminent physician Girolamo Mercuriale, with his son Massimiliano, to honour the Saints Girolamo and Mercuriale. The chapel was finished in 1606, the same year of the death of Mercuriali who wanted to be buried in it1.
Due to subsequent modifications and restorations, the actual site of Mercuriali's tomb is no more visible2, but it is remembered by a memorial tablet on the left wall reading as follows: "QUESTO MARMO / RICORDI AI POSTERI / CHE I CATTOLICI FORLIVESI / IL DI' XI NOVEMBRE 1906 / COMMEMORANDO / PRESSO LA SUA TOMBA / GIROLAMO MERCURIALI / RIAFFERMAVANO IL CONNUBIO / ETERNO NEI SECOLI / FRA LA SCIENZA E LA FEDE".
On the right wall of the chapel there is a big oil-on-canvas by italian painters Santi and Tiberio Titi, representing the patron saint of the City, Mercuriale, bringing back from Jerusalem some relics. Behind the saint, on the left, there is a portrait of Girolamo Mercuriale, as a bald old man with grey beard3.
An other memorial tablet, on the right wall of the chapel, remembers the younger son of Girolamo Mercuriale, Giovanni, dead by plague in 1597 when he was 25.
- Photos by Luca Borghi ti.supmacinu|ihgrob.l# | (april 2009)
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