The Battuti Confraternity seems to have been in Oderzo since 1313. In the following centuries it managed many real estate assets, which guaranteed their subsistence and the maintenance of a Hospitale and an orphanage. The first was located in front of the Chiesa della Maddalena in Via Garibaldi. Even if it is not clear where the orphanage was located, some elements suggest that it was in this large building in Contrada Rossa and today it’s a private house. Casa dei Battuti, indeed, has two large halls: the one on the ground floor probably served as a dormitory for the children; the one on the upper floor was the Chapter Hall, where the brethren met. Other rooms served as Sacristy and as homes for the bellman of the Cathedral and for the staff serving the hospice. Inside there are some interesting frescoes representing the Saints usually prayed by the Battuti School members: Madonna of the Mercy, Saint John the Baptist and Saint Mary Magdalene. Other frescoes portray Battuti in prayer. Observing them we discover that women could also take part in the Scola. Another one depicts a procession composed of five men with candle and the religious disciplinary. On the façade facing the current Via Mazzini there is still the stone embleme with the scourge in the center, a stick with five chains with which the Battuti used to inflict lashes on their legs and back. They did this to participate physically in the torments of the Passion of Christ. At the edge of the roof one can admire an elaborate frescoed frieze. The side of the building overlooking Contrada Rossa is elegant and grim. Its long history can be seen in an inscription placed on the marble jamb. The elegant internal garden was registered in the Real Estate Registry of the sixteenth century as a “vegetable garden and orchard”, adjacent to the dead branch of the Monticano river.
