San Francesco Church

Built between 1234 and 1240, just eight years after the death of the Saint of Assisi, it holds the primacy of the most ancient Franciscan foundation of the Marche. A wonderful example of Apennine middle Gothic style, the building develops into a single nave with two-sided wooden trusses, featuring the austerity and rigor of Franciscan architecture. The polygonal apse, externally scanned from a theory of arched bows, culminates with an ornate bushy artificial architex that perfectly blends in with the slim, bushy bell tower. The refined marble portal carries in the lunette a deteriorated fresco attributed to the eugubin Guido Palmerucci depicting the Madonna and Child and the Saints Francis and John the Baptist. Of the original mural decoration, precious paintings remain in the frescoes of the apsidal cathedral, an eloquent example of mid-Italian art, attributed to criticism by Mello da Gubbio. The chapels have significant pictorial and sculptural works. In the first altar to the right, the statue of the Franciscan saint stands with the child. In the third altar to the right that houses the relics of Blessed Giovanni Saziari, there is the Gaetano Lapis shovel depicting the Miracle of Snow (1730). On the other side of the second altar with dedication to St. Francis, the majestic marble altar is finely carved by the Finale Brothers with scenes from the life of the Saint. In the first altar on the left we can enjoy a well-executed work by Raffaellino del Colle depicting a Sacred Conversation, of a clear raffaellesque ancestry, built around 1540 on behalf of the Pierfranceschi family, in thanks for the escaped plague. On the countertop on the cantoria ends the tour of the oldest organ of the Marche to be traced back to the last decades of the '500.