The Madonna delle Grazie Sanctuary is one of the religious buildings the inhabitants of Teramo most hold dear. The community is very fond of it and very involved in the feast day on July 2nd, dedicated to the Madonna delle Grazie, whose miracles are very often connected with popular beliefs and historical events.
The Sanctuary, built before 1156, when Robert III of Loritello pillaged and set Teramo on fire, was a monastery of Benedectine nuns, dedicated to Sant’Angelo delle Donne, which towered outside the town walls. Thanks to some documents, we know that the sanctuary was enlarged in 1448 by order of Pope Eugene IV, who gave it to the minor observant friars devoted to Giacomo Della Marca. It was restored towards the end of the 17th century and again in the 19th century. During the 20th century, it was reinforced after the collapse of part of the lodge.
Today it stands completely modernized in its Neo-Renaissance look due to the last rebuilding in 1892-1900, by the architect Cesare Mariani. The facade of the church, made of bricks, displays a central rose window and two rectangular windows on both sides. It is elegantly adorned by a small portico with round arches (surmounted by a tympanum) and three entrance portals. The fresco, portraying the Virgin Mary and the Saints, decorating the lunette of the main portal was attributed to Giacomo from Campli.
The floor plan, a rectangular nave, has three chapels on each side and it ends in an apse. The ceiling is supported by a rib vault and has a hemispherical dome with frescos by Cesare Mariani, dating back to the late 19th century. Inside the church not only will you be struck by the frescos but also by the wooden polychrome statue, which dates back to the 15th century. Said statue truly is a masterpiece of local art, credited to Silvestro dell’Aquila. It represents a Madonna delle Grazie who is sitting holding the Holy Child on Hher lap. The detached fresco with the Maestà in a 15th century architectural context with a tympanum is preserved in a side chapel and attributed to Pietro Alemanno. This work of art uses the genre of the sacra conversazione (holy conversation), a depiction of the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus on either side. On one side there is a bishop. Who is probably the patron saint of Teramo, saint Berardo and there’s also a saint who’s been identified by scholars as the Bizantine saint Paraskevi of Rome. Local historian Francesco Savini credited it to Carlo Crivelli, an important Venetian, late-Gothic artist, operating in nearby Ascoli Piceno. However, in the Sixties, art critic Ferdinando Bologna identified Pietro Alemanno as its painter. The side chapels hold more recent works by distinguished local artists such as Gennaro Della Monica, Vittorio Scarsellli, Giacinto Strappolatini and Pasquale Celommi.
The cloister of the convent is a valuable part of the building, evidence of the ancient medieval building, with stone columns and capitals in the Lombard-Byzantine style, dating back to the 12th century.
In the refectory of the convent there are some frescos, dating between the end of the 1500s and the middle of the 1600s, portraying the life of Jesus, the best preserved being the image of Christ, the grape harvester.
The church keeps a considerable number of votive offerings, the oldest ones dating back to the 15th century, including a silver relief with a Nativity scene from 1565, two eighteen-century chalices of Neapolitan manufacture and a remarkable group of sacred vestments made around the and 16th century and first half of the 18th century.
Traduzione: Classe 3ALL del Liceo linguistico statale Giannina Milli
CONTENUTI AGGIUNTIVI
Scopri Teramo... con gli occhi di un adolescente (I.C. Falcone-Borsellino)
