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Church of Santa Maria della Piazza: the nucleus from which the entire village developed
The Church of Santa Maria della Piazza is the point from which the entire medieval village of Bassiano, in the Lepini Mountains, grew. It was built in the 12th century as part of a Benedictine convent, and since the 1960s it has no longer been used for worship. But the proto-Romanesque façade and the frescoes in the apse are still there.
Monks fleeing from Frederick Barbarossa
According to tradition, a group of Cassinese Benedictine monks arrived here after the destruction of the Abbey of Santa Maria delle Pezze, at the foot of the hill. It was Frederick Barbarossa's soldiers who razed it to the ground in the second half of the 12th century: they were crossing the territory to punish the inhabitants of Ninfa castle, guilty of having hosted the coronation of the rival pope Alexander III. The monks climbed up to Bassiano and founded their convent here.
Two levels, one nave
The building is constructed on two levels: the oratory above, the chapter hall below, with its entrance from Via delle Mura. In the 17th century, the façade was raised by about 3 metres. Above the entrance portal, in the lunette, there is a badly damaged fresco of Christ Blessing from the 13th–14th century. In the apse there are two frescoes: a Coronation of the Virgin and a St Anthony Abbot. In the Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows, on the left side of the single nave, a canvas by Antonio Fiorentini from 1811 was once kept; it is now in the sacristy of the Church of Sant'Erasmo (St Erasmus).
