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Macerata City: The Church of
S. Maria della Porta

A church is recorded on this site as early as the ninth century; how old it might already have been, no one knows. Its name of S. Maria della Porta or St. Mary's by the Gate is due to its location by the main gate of Macerata's now demolished fortress. The church had already been turned to lay uses in the Middle Ages, but it was later recovered by the Confraternita dei Flagellanti, a company of penitents, as their headquarters. Remnants of that early church, or at least as reworked in the eleventh century — an unusual double-nave space with three brick columns down the center, and traces of ancient frescos — now lie beneath the one now in use, and bosses on the ribbing of each nave bear emblems of the confraternity: the kind of thing I would have liked to see, but I have not been in this lower church.

The current building dates to the mid-fourteenth century: the photo above is of its main door (see also a pulled-back view of the entire door). Though now bereft of its tympanum, this door is its most prominent and attractive external feature with its alternating stone and terracotta archivolts and its curiously repeated low-relief carvings of what appear to be lions:

Once we've seen the exterior of S. Maria della Porta, we've seen the oldest part of it that can usually be visited: the checkered history of the church continued. In the 16c, the interior had four chapels, only one of which remains today, that of St. Anthony of Padua, housing a finger of the saint in a silver reliquary under seven locks: in the photo below, the narrow recess under the large arch to our right, thru which we see dimly a large painting (1628) by Giovanni Baglioni.

In 1780, the church was "restored" and apparently its floor raised a bit more; but the worst was yet to come: in 1799 when French troops burst into Macerata, the church was closed for two years — no real harm done until 1810 when S. Maria della Porta was closed again and this time turned into a military warehouse, leaving it seriously damaged; the belfry had to be taken down in 1818. A complete overhaul was needed before the church reopened in 1823, its vaulting decorated at that time by local painter Giuseppe Cotoloni, "Il Piccolo" ("the little one": whether a reflection on his physical stature or his ability, I could not say), and the chapels cut down to three.

Some of the information on this page is from Macerata Sacra (2nd ed.) by Mons. Otello Gentili Herder, Rome, 1967
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