Address: piazza Risorgimento – frazione Castrovalva

Hours: Currently closed

Description

Located in the town square, which was once outside the medieval walls, the parish church was built in the second half of the 16th century

Exterior

The façade has a doubly inflected crown from the second half of the 18th century. The central doorway has a smooth architrave crowned by a fresco of the Madonna and Child in a trapezoidal frame which is concave at the sides and convex above, surmounted by a moulding. On the upper part of the front of the church there is a clock and two elliptical side panels with figures of saints on a blue background. On the back of the building there is a small tuffa bell tower

Interior

The 18th century interior is divided into three naves by large pillars painted in a veined marble effect, which support round arches. The nave is covered with a cross vault while there is a short barrel vault leading to the hemispherical dome on plumes of the presbytery. On the side walls are stucco altars. On the right aisle is a devotional painting from the 18th century, repainted in 1924 by Alfredo Gentile, with the apparition of the Madonna dell’Incoronata of Foggia to a local farmer. The connection between Castrovalva and the Virgin who was venerated in Puglia, is linked to the phenomenon of transhumance that every year, in winter, led the shepherds to migrate with their herds to the south of Italy. In the sacristy is a polychrome, wooden statue, from the 17th century of St. Michael the Archangel, which comes from the old church of Sant'Angelo in Castro, also in the territory of the village. It shows the saint wielding a sword in his right hand, with which he defeats the devil lying under his feet, while holding in his left hand the scales with which he weighs souls. There is also a funeral altar in coloured stucco that imitates marble inlay - made in 1725 De Mancino, an artist who was working at that time in the nearby church of Santa Maria delle Grazie.