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Sant’Emidio Alle Grotte 2017-01-10T20:07:59+00:00
Sant’Emidio Alle Grotte

Sant’Emidio alle grotte is one of the most important monuments of Ascoli Piceno and represents a fine prototype of Marche’s Baroque religious art. This little temple, considered Giuseppe Giosafatti’s masterpiece, was erected between 1717 and 1721 in honor of the Patron Saint Emidio for protecting the town from the earthquake that struck the area in 1703. The travertine façade leans on a tuff hill and consists of two overlapping levels. The inside of the temple is very simple: it consists of a natural grotto carved out of the rock and features a humble altar and a travertine statue dedicated to the Saint, realized by Giuseppe Giosafatti. Three pits have been dug inside the grotto and are still visible on the background wall, where the Saint and his disciples’ relics were guarded for more than four-hundred years. The relics were later translated into the sacred sacellum of the Cathedral’s crypt. This little church is located outside the urban center, in front of the Church of Sant’Ilario, a place rich in vegetation and silence, renowned since the III century for its natural caves connected by narrow tunnels, used as a necropolis by the Christians