Church of Saint Mary
This structure dates back more than two centuries before the foundation of Pergola.
The deconsecrated church of Saint Mary (Santa Maria di Piazza)
Few traces of the original Romanesque-Gothic building remain.
The earliest known structure was a small church dedicated to the Madonna dating back to the year 1000, belonging to the monks of Sitria. This was completely transformed in 1831 when the building assumed its present appearance. On the wall of the ancient church stood a pergola of vines. The town of Pergola derives its name from this ancient feature.
Moving along the single nave interior, the first altar on the left once housed a canvas depicting Saint Charles Borromeo, a remarkable work by Claudio Ridolfi (1570-1644), now in the Museum of Gilt Bronzes. In its place is a painting of Christ at the Column, attributed to an artist of the workshop of Claudio Ridolfi, which previously hung in the cathedral.
The second altar on the left houses a painting of the Madonna of the Rosary, a 17th-century work by an artist of the Emilian School.
The first altar on the right contains the Death of Saint Joseph, a 17th-century copy of an original by Giuseppe Cesari, known as the Cavaliere d’Arpino, that now hangs in the church of Saint Paternianus in Fano.
In the second altar on the right we have the Circumcision, the work of an anonymous 17th-century artist painted in the Nordic style.
The high altar in gilt wood, which has stood for some time in front of the presbytery in the middle of the nave, houses a spectacular 17th-century Annunciation by an anonymous artist.
A series of ex-voto paintings originally housed in the church of Saint Mary of the Elm and painted between the 17th and 20th centuries has been on display here since 2014.
After the earthquake of 1997 that struck the Marche and Umbria regions, consolidation work on the church revealed a fresco of considerable size on the apsidal wall of the presbytery, dating from the first half of the 15th century. This work has been attributed to Giovanni Antonio of Pesaro, an artist of the Bellinzoni workshop in Parma, on the basis of clear similarities with other known works. The iconography is that of the Tree of Life with Christ Crucified in the centre (no longer visible). On the left are the Sorrowful Virgin with the Pious Women and Saint John the Evangelist; on the right are Saint John the Baptist and the bishop Saint Athanasius. The fresco is crowned by a decoration of medallions surrounded by tree fronds containing female and male busts, probably Sibyls and Prophets, bearing scrolls with inscriptions in Gothic characters.
Unfortunately, the entire central part of this work was destroyed when the niche in the wall was opened to make place for the majestic 17th-century wooden altar. The only piece to have survived, depicting the face of Christ, was found a few years ago in the rectory of the Cathedral and has now been returned to its original position.