Aspects Of The Economical Life And Holy Architecture In S. Maria La Fossa During The Middle Ages

Maria Santissima Assunta in Cielo Church, situated in S, Maria la Fossa (X-XI) is one of the most beautiful and important monuments of southern Italy. It is on the left of the Volturno River, near the Porto delle Femmine, in a marshy and hunting area. It was built little by little from the X century perhaps by Greek monks. It was completed onlt in the Angevin period in the second half of the XIII century, almost certainly by the St. Antonio of Vienne (Antoniani) rectory. The pictorial decoration has the most complex and important surviving cycle of the Campana region method between the XII and the XV centuries. Among the oldest frescos we can mention the one in St. Stefano (XII century), the one in St. Leonardo (XII century), whose devotion was imported during the Norman period by Saint-Leonard de Noblat, a small French town, and the Opere di Carità (XIII century). The representations of the Madonna del Velo o del Rosario, of the Madonna del Cardellino, of the Madonna del Coniglio and of the Annunciazione are extremely beautiful. Thanks to the nearby port, the church for a long time had been a place of worship for merchants coming from Amalfi, Naples, Genoa, Pisa and Florence. They would come from Castelvolturno selling their goods and then would continue on to Capua.