Church Santa Maria in Calchera, Baroque church in central Brescia, Italy.

Santa Maria in Calchera is a Baroque church located in central Brescia featuring curved walls, vaulted ceilings, and intricate sculptural details. The interior displays characteristic elements of this architectural style with carefully crafted stonework and stucco throughout the space.

The church was first mentioned in a papal bull of 1125 as a chapel dedicated to Santa Maria della Visitazione, near a lime kiln (calcara) that gave it its name; by 1148 it was already called Santa Maria de Calcaria. Early 14th-century remodelling was funded by the Calchera family. Between the 16th and 18th centuries it was practically rebuilt, leaving only fragments of the old apse wall.

The name comes from the lime kiln (calcara) that stood here before the chapel; a papal bull of 1148 already calls it Santa Maria de Calcaria. The Avoltori family held the lay patronage from 1401, and their coat of arms still crowns the wooden altar of the first altar on the left, which frames Moretto's Supper in the House of Simon.

The church stands at the south-west corner of the small piazzetta of the same name, along via Trieste, a short walk from piazzale Arnaldo. The facade and part of the north side are the only exterior parts visible; the entrance portal is Baroque, with a low-arched pediment and free-standing Ionic columns. Inside, the single nave has four deep, funnel-shaped side chapels, two per side, so allow time to move between them to see the altarpieces.

The church's name comes from a lime kiln, a calcara or calchera, recorded in 10th- and 11th-century documents for this zone; the building was already called Santa Maria de Calcaria in a papal bull of 1148, barely twenty-five years after its first mention in 1125. Look for the few surviving fragments of the older structure in the outer wall of the apse.