UNFORTUNATELY, THE ABBAZIA DI PIOBBICO WAS DAMAGED BY THE EARTHQUAKE OF 26 AND 30 OCTOBER 2016 AND IS THEREFORE CONDEMNED.

The Abbazia di Piobbico

The Abbey of Santa Maria and San Biagio, originally known as Santa Maria between the rivers (“inter rivoira”), as it is located between the rivers Tenna and Tennacola, was founded in 1030, consecrated in 1059 and, in the fifteenth century,  dedicated to San Biagio.

It is located in a green basin near Piobbico. In the monastic citadel, we cherish the church and, leaning against the sacred building, a homestead. Various local lords sold or ceded to the abbey a great number of properties, lands and settlers, the collection of tithes and churches since the very first period after its establishment. In the mid-thirteenth century, the monks obtained from the commune of Sarnano the possibility of building within the municipal walls an oratory dedicated to the Virgin, which is the original core of the church of Santa Maria di Piazza.

The abbey church of Piobbico has an east-west layout with a rectangular apse, and the presbytery is raised above the tripartite crypt with two rows of four columns and semi-columns leaning against the walls; above the altar is the statue of San Biagio. On the flat bottom of the apse and along the right wall there are frescoed panels with images of saints and a more intense scene of Adoration of the Magi attributable to two different artists from the first half of the fifteenth century, Giovanni di Corraduccio (for the presbyterial squares) and Matteo da Gualdo (for the frescoes in the nave).

The crypt, the only entirely preserved part of the original building, has three naves on tuff and stone columns, two of which are octagonal. The cross-ribbed vaults that cover the sacellum lean onto the rough capitals.