The church is part of an abbey of whom there are only a few ruins left; it dates back to the end of the XI century and it was restored at the end of the Nineties of the XX century.
A jewel worth visiting between sea and countryside, it is one of the oldest and most beautiful abbeys in Fermo.
The church is part of an abbey of whom there are only a few ruins left; it dates back to the end of the XI century and it was restored at the end of the Nineties of the XX century.
San Marco alle Paludi is a small group of houses located along the street that connects Fermo to the sea, leading up to the maritime area of Lido San Tommaso.
San Marco alle Paludi abbey, in Romanic style, is without doubt this city quarter’s pride. The Abbey was built by the Augustinians and an inscription certifies its foundation in 1053, at the times of the Emperor Maximian.
The monks were probably the ones who reclaimed the swamps in river Tenna’s area and who later built the monastery. In the same area stood also a leper colony, where the monks gave their assistance charitably.
The leper colony first and the monastery then were probably closed due to the decrease of the number of monks living there and because of the difficulties caused by the proximity of the sea, from where sometimes Saracens’ invasions arrived.
The Church is surrounded by a delightful garden, it has a rectangular shape and it’s divided in three naves; the central one has a beamed ceiling and the side ones have masonry vaults and small windows.
Next to the Church stands an impressive bell tower with a pyramidal roof standing over the surrounding countryside. The tower has a little level ground with four windows that used to be the monks’ observatory to monitor the underlying valley up to the Adriatic Sea, from where Saracens used to go ashore to loot Fermo’s city quarters.
Inside the abbey there’s a glass flooring, to let the visitors admire the underlying foundations; inside the holy walls are preserved many precious frescoes, a collection of eight thousand relics, carved figures and paintings containing the offers brought by the faithfuls during the long story of the Church.
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