Oratory built by the Spaniards
It was built in 1631 (AD MDCXXXI is reported on the granite portal) it is said by the Spaniards that they had taken control of the island (except Cosmopoli) starting from 1600. At that time there were no buildings outside the medieval walls that enclosed the village of San Piero , except for the 12th Pieve di S Giovanni Century dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul.
Cemetery near the oratory would have been built in 1820.
San Rocco Oratory
Rocco of Montpellier, universally known as San Rocco (born in an unspecified year between 1346 and 1350, who died in Voghera in the night between 15 and 16 August of an unspecified year between 1376 and 1379 he is venerated as a saint by the Catholic Church and is the patron saint of numerous cities and towns. He is the most invoked saint. , from the Middle Ages onwards, as protector from the terrible scourge of the plague together with San Sebastiano.
It is not excluded that the construction of the oratory took place following three plagues that between 1451 and 1592 had done in Elba massacre of the population. In the picture in the center of the apse of the small church, San Rocco is depicted with some of the Attributes (pilgrim’s dress, wide-brimmed hat, cloak and relative capes, stick, shell, purse, gourd-canteen, plague on one leg, dog at his feet holding a piece of bread, red cross on the side of the heart, angel carrying a tablet indicating the anti-pestilence patronage and St. Sebastian who during his martyrdom is hit by numerous arrows, but does not die and is treated by St. Irene: the wounds caused by the arrows they are compared to the signs (buboes) of the plague, the saint was saved therefore the people too, turning to him hoping to save themselves from the plague.
Interior of the Oratory of San Piero
The façade of the oratory with a single nave is embellished with two narrow, single-lancet windows and a beautiful granite portal, a frame refines the profile of the roof which culminates with an iron cross. On the left slope is a bell gable with a bell. Inside, commemorative marble tombstones were installed, coming from the surrounding wall of the cemetery following expansion works in the year 1900. During the maintenance work of the building in 1989, the tombstones were removed and deposited in a corner of the cemetery . Following the involvement of the then (1996) municipal councilor Patrizio Olivi on 2 March 2015 the Superintendence for the Arts and Landscape for the Provinces of Pisa and Livorno prescribed the relocation of the removed tombstones. The restoration intervention in August 2015 was carried out with donations and voluntary services on the initiative of the Le Macinelle Cultural Center.