The Credaro frescoes are Lorenzo Lotto’s last work in the Bergamo area, just before his departure for Venice in December 1525, where he unsuccessfully attempted to conquer the art scene of his hometown. Signed and dated on the frame of the back wall “Laurentius Lotus MDXXV,” the cycle was commissioned by the consortium of the Misericordia di Credaro – a fragmentary inscription under the Adoration reads “ex voto […] credarii” – desiring to embellish the chapel dedicated to St. Rocco, whose cult was particularly heartfelt since he was credited with safeguarding the town from the plague that spread through Val Calepio in 1524.
The scene on the tympanum of the niche in the back wall of the church with Saint George killing the dragon, an obligatory iconography given the dedication of the building, is of great narrative skill, with proto-cinematic movements in the windblown drapery. On the side walls of the aedicule, attached to the main body of the building, a series of saints recall the most widespread devotions of the local community and, once again, the safeguarding from contagion. The star scene of the cycle, appreciable for its high inventive and compositional quality despite the gaps and widespread degradation of the surfaces, is the Adoration of the Child in the presence of Saints Rocco and Sebastian, set in the popular context of a manger.
Despite the poor legibility of the mural and a series of damages suffered, above all the severed legs of San Sebastiano, shortened to open the door that directly connects the church with the frescoed environment, the scenic layout on multiple levels and certain details are appreciable as tasty as the farmers at work under the wooden truss and the donkey who, with his mouth open, is forever stuck in the act of braying.
Similar to the cycle of frescoes in San Michele al Pozzo Bianco in Bergamo – also executed in 1525 – the vault is occupied by an apocalyptic and menacing glide of God the Father, a scene that demonstrates artistic suggestions with the Michelangelo of the Sistine Chapel vault but also an artistic relationship between Lotto and Pordenone; also evident is a marked stylistic proximity between Lotto and Romanino, a Brescian painter who in 1526 would fresco a chapel dedicated to San Rocco in nearby Villongo.
The poor state of preservation of Credaro’s frescoes can be attributed first of all to the centuries-long exposure to the elements, given that they were conceived for outdoor placement, but also, probably, to a certain executive haste on the part of the painter and to the humidity of the season in which the frescoes were executed, which certainly must not have favored the process of carbonation of the murals.

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