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Thursday, September 1, 2011

More Sight Seeing in Ascoli

door to Ave Maria
We also went in the church of Ave Maria. There are some fantastic huge marble columns and sculptures from the 17th c. but the interesting part were the very early fresco fragments from the 12/13th c.

Fresco fragment, Ave Maria














We then walked down towards the Roman bridge, still in use and with cars going over it. On the way a church was open that is normally closed. San Maria dell Intervenous, the sign says it is called that because it was built over a vineyard. John however is of the opinion that it means 'of the blood'. This is because the site is right by the river and vineyards are never planted by the river, but higher up on the hills.

Either way the church is quite a find. The inside is obviously old, around 11th century and with some fairly well preserved fragments of frescoes on the pillars along with Byzantine styled lions on the portico.

San Maria Intervenous
S.Maria Intervenous fresco

S.Maria Intervenous fresco

S.Maria Intervenous fresco

ancient graffiti on the fresco
 









Church tower of S. Maria Intervenous



















Later we walked across the Roman bridge and took a look at a place that Gabrielli had painted of which I had bought a print. I haven't taken a pic of the print, but will do that and show you the painting and a photo of the place side by side.

2 comments:

  1. Mary, these pictures and posts and stories are "ahhh-mazing" as my 16 yr old dd would say.

    As far as the Church of S. Maria Intervenous, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's named for St. Mary, the Intervenor. A lot of Catholics pray to Mary as a "go between" from them to God.

    I may have totally butchered how to word that but it's not quite 5:30am and I'm still on my first cuppa.

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  2. Hi Becky, yes but the Italian word is something else (for intervene)so I'm thinking really it's more like John thinks, that it is Mary of the Blood, as in blood family, blood of Christ, ect. I'll have to check what intervene would be in Italian. Just lots of time the Italians just put up signs and what not without any sort of scholarship behind it at all and that looks to be the case here.

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