COLLEGIATA DI SAN MICHELE ARCANGELO

The mother church of the town obtained the title of collegiate in 1353. It rises on the site of a previous house of worship dating back to the eleventh century and was rebuilt in the style typical of the late Middle Ages. On the main façade a spired bell-tower stands, whose pinnacle reflects the typology which Antonio da Lodi brought to the Abruzzi in the fifteenth century. On the right side, a long fifteenth- century arcade with ogival arches supported by columns looks at the square. The arcade concludes - it was actually demolish in the eighteenth century - just before the portal, handiwork of the school of Atri, bedecked with the image of Saint Michael the Archangel in the lunette and the remains of an eleventh-century pulpit. The inside of the church, with a nave and two aisles, preserves valuable wooden altars decorated with stuccoes. Inside the church it is possible to see the sarcophagus of the bishop of Penne, Amico di Buonamicizia, died in 1467; the overhead tomb is raised by shelves with angels holding the coffin, on which the coat of arms and the figure of the lying bishop are carved.