Palazzo San Filippo

The Biblioteca Comunale Laudense, the Laudense library, is in Palazzo di San Filippo, which is one of the best examples of Lombard Baroque in the second half of the 18th century. Before the French Revolution, the palace was, with the adjacent church, the seat of the congregation of the Priests of the Oratory or Filippini, founded by Saint Philip Neri in Rome in 1575 and established in Lodi since 1622. The first Oratorians, having purchased the building on the existing site in 1639, adapted it for their use and completed the work with the construction of the church of San Filippo in 1645. In 1740 the building and the church that had housed the Fathers for almost a century were demolished by the master brothers Michele and Pietro Giacomo Sartorio, exponents of the Lodi Rococo style who had already been responsible ( with their father Domenico) for the Villa Barni project, and the new construction by Veneroni began the same year (according to the contemporary chronicler Father Anselmo Robba).

The construction of the complex continued until 1758, the year in which the great vaulted hall that still houses the library was finished, and that Federico Ferrari decorated with "San Filippo in contemplation of the cross" in 1764. The great walnut cupboards in the hall, which stand 8 metres high, were also finished in 1765. The ornamental parts of these cupboards are due to Cavanna, a famous carver of the time, but other sources assign the work to the Oppizio family and others suggest a collaboration between Cavanna and the Oppizio.