Abbey of Santa Maria di Valfucina

Located in a rather “out of the way” hollow, on the slopes of Monte Vicino, by now almost indistinguishable among the modern buildings of a farm, stands a small single-nave church with a semicircular apse facing east, the latter of rather recent construction. This is what remains of the “powerful Benedictine abbey of Valfucina”, which reached the height of its power in the 13th century. Access to the valley was guarded by the castle of Elcito, still partly visible a few hundred metres from the little church and by now inhabited almost exclusively during the summer season (it preserves parts of its walls and a small church); in ancient times it was “built by the monks as a defence of the nearby monastery and residence of the abbot”. Various documentary sources make it possible to trace the events that involved this abbey in the medieval period. Its foundation would seem to predate the 11th century, and its expansion is thought to have continued until the 15th century, when its properties were assigned to the collegiate church of San Severino (at San Severino Marche). The old church probably collapsed in 1799 as a result of an earthquake. Only recently has the crypt been “rediscovered” (it remains the only legacy of the original Romanesque buildings): it has a rectangular plan with a semicircular apse and is divided into three small aisles by columns with roughly decorated capitals, now incorporated into walls built to support the floor of the church above. Near the church building, scholars have also identified “a rocky outcrop that still shows the marks of the ancient quarry”, used to extract the materials that served for the construction of the monastery. Although simple in construction and small in size, this mountain chapel preserves in its foundation area a curious example of a pre-Romanesque crypt. Entering from the south side through a hole (it really cannot be called a door) in the wall just before the apse arch, one reaches the crypt of ancient construction. Although the site is hard to read, the general architectural features of the building can be made out: it must have ended in a single apse to the east and had single-light windows, now illegible except for one; the plan was rectangular with three aisles, divided by columns with capitals carved in arcane geometric forms and – a rare circumstance given the probable antiquity of the foundation (10th century) – some of these are decorated in relief with roughly outlined human faces (by the half-columns supporting the vaults of the apse semicircle). Two other capitals bear zoomorphic representations: a bull’s head and the figure of a wolf-fox (the other capitals are carved with mainly geometric representations, close in taste to pre-Carolingian and Carolingian works). Because of the lack of lighting, the side aisles can only be explored by groping one’s way, while the central nave is blocked by various materials to ensure support for the present church. It is impossible to form an idea of the type of masonry, and the exterior offers no reliable clues either, since the visible parts of the building appear heavily altered (walled-up arches appear on the outer sides of the nave). It is hard to imagine that this place, so far from urban centres and off the main lines of communication, was an important religious centre in the medieval centuries.