Saint Roch church, Religious building in Rovereto, Italy

Saint Roch Church stands on Corso Bettini in Rovereto, opposite the Antonio Rosmini high school. Two stairways with privet hedges lead to a raised forecourt. The facade is a 1950s gabled design by architect Tiella, with a terracotta relief of the meeting of Saints Francis and Roch above the portal and graffiti passages from the Canticle of the Creatures beside the semicircular window. Inside, the bare interior has wall paintings by Francesco Molinari (1950) and carved wooden altars; the high altarpiece by Domenico Udine (1822) shows Saint Roch with Rovereto in the background.

The church was founded after the 1630 plague, the tenth to strike Rovereto: the podestà Appiani and the citizens processed to the "Alla Crosetta" shrine and vowed to build a church there. The first stone was laid in 1631, Franciscans from Arco settled a convent beside it in 1638, and the church was consecrated in 1651. Renovations in the 19th and 20th centuries gave it its present look.

The church is dedicated to Saint Roch, invoked against the plague, along with the Virgin Mary, Saint Sebastian and Saint Charles, following the 1630 epidemic. The wooden altars are carved and painted brown; the high altar retable, painted by Domenico Udine in 1822, shows Saint Roch with Rovereto in the background.

The church stands on the raised churchyard along Corso Bettini, reached by two stairways flanked by privet, almost opposite the Liceo Antonio Rosmini. The forecourt is above street level, so the entrance is by steps rather than a level path. A few metres south, on the same street, stands the former chapel of Sant'Antonio, built in 1715-1716.

On the wall supporting the raised churchyard, a carved stone plaque topped by a cross and a mitre marks where Bishop Adelpreto II was reportedly killed in 1177. A few metres south, a chapel built in 1715–1716 stood on the spot where his martyrdom was wrongly believed to have occurred; it was later dedicated to Anthony of Padua.