Church of Madonna delle Grazie

The church of the Madonna delle Grazie is located outside the old village, along the street of the same name. Various sources attest that in remote times it was the first Christian church in the town. The title of "Madonna delle Grazie" was probably assigned to her following the preaching of San Giacomo della Marca who, during the century. XV, spread the cult of Maria Santissima in Teramo. Until the construction of the church of San Benedetto Abate, in 1610, this was the parish church of the town, as attested by the sixteenth-century pastoral visits. This honor was paid to it due to the particular devotion of the people, who continued to prefer it as their mother church, although already at the end of the Middle Ages the inhabited center had moved further east, to the hill where it is still today. In the sixteenth century the church of the Madonna delle Grazie was in the open countryside, outside the city walls.

The current structure has an important sixteenth-seventeenth-century nucleus but it is difficult to see it except in some structural details, in the architectural elements of the sacristy and in the bell tower, since the building underwent massive restorations in 1854 and, even more invasively, in the course of the fifties of the twentieth century, to honor a vow made by the counter-guerrillas on February 2, 1944, to preserve the country from the disasters of war.

The exterior of the church is in brick, with plaster on part of the facade and on the side walls, but not on the back of the building, which still reveals the sixteenth-seventeenth century brickwork. The facade is tripartite by paired brick pilasters with geometric motifs, obtained from the polychromy of the brick. The door is surmounted by a marble plaque, which recalls the consecration of the counter-war people to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which took place on July 2, 1943, and by a large square window. The entrance is on a staircase accessible from three sides, a consequence of the lowering of the ground level. To decorate the entrance, two ancient travertine columns are placed in the ground, probably recovered from the cloister of the demolished convent of San Francesco.

The entablature rests on the capitals of the pilasters and is surmounted by a small central pediment which recalls an ancient temple. Not surprisingly, the church was known as "the temple" of the Madonna delle Grazie.

In the square in front of the building there is a paving structure in polychrome marble which recalls the Jubilee of the year 2000.

The bell tower, located at the back of the building, on the east side, is sail-shaped, in Spanish style, with three openings. There are two bells, cast in Agnone, which depict the Madonna and Child. The smaller one bears the inscription «Santa Maria ora pro nobis 1728», the larger one bears the inscription «Ave Maria gratia plena ora pro nobis 1755».

The small door under the bell tower today communicates with the sacristy, but in the past it led to a room separate from the church: the hermitage. The hermits live there; in fact, up until the 19th century there was someone who chose to live as a hermit and, having obtained permission to wear the hermit's habit, found accommodation in the enclosed space behind the church of the Madonna delle Grazie. In return, the village hermit watched over the church. Alfonso Panichi recalls that around the mid-nineteenth century Pietro Pompili had chosen to live as a hermit.

The date "1645" can be read on a brick placed on the rear facade of the building. It probably recalls the reconstruction of the bell tower, which, according to contemporary pastoral visits, was in very bad condition. In the back of the building, various recycled travertine materials are also visible, perhaps from the Roman or medieval era.

The interior of the church consists of three naves. The central one is larger and older and has a barrel vault finely frescoed, in 1906-1908, by the Corropolese painter Filippo Flajani, with exalting scenes from the Mysteries of the Rosary. The representations are inserted in boxes on a light blue background. Starting from the main entrance, the five panels depict: 1. the Annunciation; 2. the Visitation; 3. the Nativity; 4. the Assumption; 5. the Choir of Angels. Four saints, no longer visible, were depicted on the walls: San Bernardo, San Cirillo, San Giovanni Damasceno and San Bonaventura. Likewise, the niches that contained the statues of saints and two side altars, dedicated to San Giuseppe and Sant'Anna, have also disappeared. Only the altar of San Giuseppe has been rebuilt, at the end of the left aisle.

The round arches that separate the bays with Marian scenes are embellished with medallions depicting little angels. Tradition has it that the painter portrayed the faces of 25 Counter-Guerre children, some of whom passed away during the years in which he found himself working in Controguerra. Also according to tradition, one of these (the second from the left on the second arch from the entrance door) would have the features of the son of the Marquis Angelo Flajani - a close relative of the painter - who lived in Controguerra. The decision to paint the faces of the children may have been inspired by the fact that the church, until the mid-nineteenth century, housed the sepulchres of the counter-guerrillas and one in particular was the parvulorum sepulcrum, i.e. the one reserved for children.

The last bay contains the raised presbytery. The privileged altar, in Baroque style, has a base with two twisted columns covered in stucco which support the entablature and the lowered arch tympanum. The mosaic decorations of the altar - bunches of grapes and pampani - were created in 1941, thanks to a donation from Pasquale Crescenzi, as remembered by an engraving at the base of the structure. At the center of the altar, in a niche carved into the wall, is the sixteenth-century terracotta effigy of the Virgin of Grace. In the upper part there is a seventeenth-century canvas (cm 60x75) depicting God the Father blessing.

The side aisles have a flat ceiling and were added in the 1954 restoration. At the end of the left aisle there is a statue of San Giuseppe Lavoratore, while at the end of the right aisle there is an altar dedicated to the Blessed Sacrament. The polychromed side windows are bound in lead and were made in Atri, by the Camper company, in 1957.

During these restorations, the choir loft above the main entrance, which housed an organ, was eliminated.

The building was damaged in recent years by the 2016 earthquake in Central Italy and was reopened to the public, after restoration and safety measures, in 2019.