Monastero e Chiesa di San Marco

According to local historian Rosini, this massive construction was raised for the Franciscans a few years after St. Francesco’s death. Very simple in origin, this building has undergone many variations through the years.  In 1243 Pope Innocent III had openly asked the authorities for some funds for the amelioration and widening of that place which was too small to meet the monks’ needs. The church was consecrated in 1359 as confirmed by a plaque placed on its lower wall. In 1655, the Benedictine Nuns moved to and definitively settled in the old Franciscan monastery, thanks to local lawyer, Armenio Agnellini whose donation aimed to establish a convent for the nuns. The present structure still bears the traces of construction stages, each of whom perfectly respondent to a specific historical period and characterized by several  paintings or complete pictorial series which allow the identification of three basic periods: the Middle Ages; a second period going from 1500 to 1600 and a third period which is 1700. The first two stages corresponding to the Franciscan period, are witnessed by two frescos  by the Maestro of Offida which depict the series of St. Orsola and St. Catherine and by the seventeenth-century frescos of the cloister-garth which portray several episodes of St. Anthony’s life. The outer church clearly reflects the arrival of the Benedictine nuns occurred in the third period. The present Baroque Church was built in 1738 under Monsignor Paolo Marana, using the central part of the old Franciscan Church and some spoils from the ruins of the local St. Angel’s Church. The interior hosts three altars enriched with three eighteenth-century canvasses: the altarpiece hosts a painting depicting Our Lady of Sorrows surrounded by St. Benedict, St. Scolastica, St. Marco and St. Luigi Gonzaga, all by Nicola Pannozzi also the author of a canvass placed on the altar to your right portraying the Immaculate with St. Filippo Neri, St. Anna, St. Anthony and St. Gioacchino. The canvass on the altar to your left depicts the Madonna of the Carmine with St. Gertrude, St. Apollonia, St. Mauro and St. Placido.