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S. Maria del Ponte


[image ALT: The façade of a single-story stone church, with a large brick-edged round-arched door, a small plain circular window above it with a much thinner edging of brick, and two square windows at roughly eye height, about 45 cm on a side, one to either side of the door. The gently sloping roof is surmounted by a single-arched open belfry of the type known as a 'campanile a vela'. It is the church of S. Maria del Ponte in Marcellano, Umbria (central Italy).]

The church, or more properly the oratory, is said to have been built as a votive chapel by the people of Marcellano shortly after the plague of 1527, which the town traversed without the loss of a single inhabitant; a pair of surviving frescos of St. Sebastian and St. Rocco, protectors against plague, do bear out the story.


[image ALT: Most of a rectangular room about 5 meters wide by 15 meters long, with a high truss-and‑beam ceiling at about 5 meters. Eight wooden pews accommodating 4 people each can be seen, four on either side of the central aisle. At the end of the room, an altar draped in linen, and behind it a very faded wall of frescoes, with a central niche with frescoes in better condition. It is a view of the interior of the church of S. Maria del Ponte in Marcellano, Umbria (central Italy).]

The spare interior; damp, rain and whitewash have done their work on the frescoes, but if money can be found it may be possible to restore and protect them.

The best-visible fresco in this view is the Crucifixion with St. Anthony on the left; high up on the same wall, the medallions left and right, following a scheme commonly seen in Umbria, represent the Annunciation — angel to the left and Mary to the right — bracketing a faded Coronation of the Virgin. A votive fresco of Mother and Child rounds the bend on the right wall.


[image ALT: A painting of a woman holding her child, being crowned by angels; to her right, a haloed brown-robed monk holding a cross and a book, and showing sitgmata piercing thru to the backs of his hands; to her left, a haloed man in a short tunic, exposing his legs which bear wounds: he is carrying a curved staff with a bag hanging from the end. It is a painting of the Coronation of the Virgin in the church of S. Maria del Ponte in Marcellano, Umbria (central Italy).]

Over the altar, an oil painting of the Virgin with St. Francis and St. Rocco, dating to 1948, replaces an old fresco on the same subject, already restored in 1841 but finally destroyed by the humidity.


[image ALT: A long rectangular single-story stone church against a lush background of vegetation. The gently sloping roof is surmounted by a single-arched open belfry of the type known as a 'campanile a vela'. It is the church of S. Maria del Ponte in Marcellano, Umbria (central Italy).]

The name Santa Maria del Ponte, St. Mary's by the Bridge, will mystify the casual visitor, since there doesn't seem to be a bridge nearby: but there is one. The church sits in a hollow below the town, a small flat area traversed by a trickle of water which during the rainy season must swell into a full-blown creek, and the little access road crosses it. Above ground, nothing marks the crossing, but if you poke around near the underside of the road, you'll see a small arched brick structure — in sum, a bridge: now partly buried over the centuries, at one time, when the church was new, it was more visible and gave it its name.


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Page updated: 29 Sep 07