Church of Santa Maria Assunta

Built in 1787 at the behest of Cardinal Giovanni Francesco Albani based on a design by architect Francesco Ciarafoni, the Church of Santa Maria Assunta is a valuable art treasure trove featuring a copy of Correggio’s Nativity attributed to Domenichino, a Saint Sebastian by Paolo Gismondi, the Assumption by Giovanni Pirri, a Madonna and Saints by Pomarancio, and Christ at the Column by Francesco Trevisani.

The perspective of the street is closed by the imposing front of the monumental church of the Assumption, a neoclassical work by Francesco Ciarafoni from Ancona. Inside, in addition to the artisanal precious works of the late eighteenth century, such as the plaster statues of the famous stonemasons of Sant’Ippolito – dedicated by the leaders of the time to the most famous or venerated saints on site – the wooden choir, with the eighteenth-century portraits of the commendatory abbots above – the jealousies of the choir stalls, the confessionals, the elegantly worked or inlaid wooden furniture of the sacristy, the friezes, the refined original furnishings, to the artistic “miraculous” seventeenth-century crucifix, to the precious baptistery below, finely decorated with biblical subjects, one can visit a true art gallery of the modern age, largely due to the abbey’s income and the consequent munificence of the cardinal-abbots, the penultimate of whom, Giovanni Francesco Albani, in 1787 wanted to have the old church where he had received minor orders rebuilt with dignity. Entering on the right you find an excellent copy of Correggio’s Nativity already attributed to Domenichino, continuing you have the seventeenth-century Saint Sebastian by the classical painter Paolo Gismondi from Perugia, whose dimensions were expanded in the ‘700 when the painting had already undergone a chromatic blurring, as highlighted by the recent restoration. The Assumption in the apse, commissioned specifically from the painter Giovanni Pirri, fits harmoniously into the culture of the time and the interior decorations inspired by a classical temple, with its archaeological references and the ancient setting of the scene. But the church’s jewels can be considered Pomarancio’s Madonna and Saints, a painting unfortunately later expanded and in any case comparable in value to the works that the artist dedicated to the Basilica of Loreto, as well as the dramatic Baroque image of Christ at the Column by the Venetian Francesco Trevisani.