TORRE DI PALME CHIESA DI SANTA MARIA A MARE

Photo By: Baldassarri Giuseppe Visual Storytelling - Own work, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, Link

63900 Torre di Palme FM, Italy. CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA MARE OF TORRE DI PALME is dating back to the 11th century, the church consists of a complex of three interconnected churches that demonstrate a particular artificiality of the restoration interventions that have taken place over the years. The facade overlooking Piazza Amedeo Lattanzi, dating back to the seventeenth century, is built of bricks and stones. Without decorations, it has a portal and a rose window. Stupendous is the robust and thirteenth-century bell tower, original and decorated with pointed arches. Through the four large single lancet windows, you can see the trusses of the roof built in the restoration of the eighteenth century after the collapse of the cusp, which occurred following a lightning strike. To the right of the building, there is the Romanesque facade which overlooks Via Giulio Cesare. Continuing along the street you can see the third appendix to the building, the external part of the current sacristy: interesting are the terracotta predelle walled on the walls for decorative purposes, and the upper part of the arch of the window on the south side; on the west side there is the presence of another window surmounted by an arch, now walled up. The interior has three naves: magnificent as regards the structure of the presbytery consisting of cross vaults in the Romanesque-Gothic style. On the left there is a baptismal font consisting of two basins: the large one dates back to the pagan period, while the smallest is from the medieval period. The back wall was completely frescoed: today there are traces of paintings in a precarious state of conservation. The rest of the church was built in the 1900s. The large central vault built in a cane chamber was frescoed by the Sangiorgese painter Jacopo Nardi. Torre di Palme is a characteristic medieval village belonging to the circle of the Fermo castles. Torre di Palme stands on top of a hill and overlooks the Adriatic Sea, offering a spectacular panorama to attentive observers. The village of Torre di Palme developed thanks to the Augustinians, who also built a medieval castle with a strong defensive system. Torre di Palme is a village architecturally characterized by a stylistic uniformity of medieval and Renaissance buildings, elements that make it one of the most interesting historical centers in the region. The ancient village is cut from west to east by via Piave which is overlooked by the most significant buildings of the ancient town, also, it allows you to admire incomparable urban views in which the narrow streets frame wide views of the sea and the surrounding hills. Of interest to see in Torre di Palme is the Church of San Giovanni del Mille, in stone ashlars and hanging arches, inside which there are frescoes of the fifteenth century; the Priorale Palace with a round arch walled in the facade and a bell-shaped sail and the Church of Sant'Agostino, in Gothic order, with an adjoining convent, with a typical red terracotta, whose gabled facade is ennobled by a beautiful Gothic portal and rose window: not to be missed, inside, a panel by Vincenzo Pagani (1578) and an imposing polyptych by Vittore Crivelli. Along the course you reach the Church of Santa Maria a Mare, built in the twelfth century, in stone and terracotta ashlars, interesting the interior with three naves with the raised presbytery and Byzantine-style frescoes of the fourteenth century. In front of the church stands the Romanesque Oratory of San Rocco from the 12th century, whose sixteenth-century portal features the coat of arms of Torre di Palme. The village is surrounded by the thick vegetation of the Boschetto di Cugnolo, a protected floristic area, interesting because it preserves typical species of the Mediterranean scrub; the area is an ideal destination for hikers, also thanks to the suggestive Grotta Degli Amanti, theater of the tragic love of Antonio and Laurina, the two lovers who found death by throwing themselves into the void from the Fosso di San Filippo. Click here for a map.