Luogo - Religious building
CHIESA DI SANTA MARIA MAGGIORE
Where
Via S. Maria Maggiore, Vasto (Chieti)
Built in the eleventh century, the church was heavily damaged by the Turkish invaders in 1566 and later by a fire in 1645. In the Eighties of the eighteenth century the church was re-built in brick and enlarged, so as to acquire an imposing aspect; nevertheless the façade kept the massive belfry, erected in the fourteenth century, as the hanging arches prove. The interior is well-lit and airy and consists of one single nave covered with vaults and a cupola. It preserves the relic of the Sacred Thorn, a fifteenth-century monstrance by Nicola from Guardiagrele and precious canvases, among which the Madonna with Child in throne, in Titianesque style and Saint Catherine's Weddings attributed to Paolo Veronese.
