The restoration of the sculpture by Giuseppe Carra depicting “Saint Anthony of Padua adoring the Child“, located in the center of the columns placed on the loggia of the oratory façade Sant ‘Antonio to Soragna. The intervention was financed by Rotary Club Salsomaggiore Terme and carried out by Angela Alini and the Opus Restauri team under the direction of Angela Coccioli Mastroviti of the Superintendence of Parma and Piacenza. After a mass in memory of the deceased members of the Rotary Salso, celebrated by the parish priest Don Abdou Rahal, the restoration was presented to the citizens.
After the thanks to Rotary for what was done by the parish priest and the mayor Marco Taccagni, there followed the interventions of the Rotarians involved in the project. The assistant to the governor Giovanni Pedretti, the president Francesco Maini, the past president Sergio Lusardi who had started the service, the scholar Giovanni Godi and Marco Pinna took turns at the microphone. Finally, the restorer went into detail about the work done: consolidation of the joints, cleaning of smog residues and fixing. Then everyone in the churchyard for blessing.
As Giovanni Godi explained, the statue is a terracotta sculptural group, created in 1806. The statue is one of the first works created by Carra, known above all for the statues on the Taro bridge in Pontetaro and for the staircase of Palazzo Marchi in Parma, and is still linked to the taste of the end of the eighteenth century. The church was built based on a design by Francesco Galli Bibbiena (1696), financed by the Meli Lupi family and the confraternity of the Santissimo Sacramento. Inside, the stuccos were created by Giacomo Mercoli (1698), who was working on the Rocca con Bibiena at that time. The two paintings on the side walls are by Giovanni Bolla (1698). The once Baroque façade was replaced in the 19th century by the current neoclassical one by the architect Giuseppe Rasori (1806). The statue being restored depicts Saint Anthony of Padua, to whom the Meli Lupi family was very close.
