The oratory of the Immacolata Concezione, or of the Cona

The oratory of the Immaculate Conception, or Madonna della Cona, is a sixteenth-century church originally built in a rural area, but which today is urbanized in the modern building fabric. The building has not undergone particularly invasive restorations and retains a contemporary fresco, depicting the Virgin with Saints Augustine (kneeling in prayer) and Benedetto Abate (standing with pastoral staff), which occupies the entire wall behind the altar. In the seventeenth century, perhaps on a side wall, there was a depiction of San Carlo, which no longer exists today.

Externally, the entrance to the church is located at the top of a small side flight of stairs with a landing. The portal is architraved and framed by bricks. On the sides there are two small square windows, also framed with bricks. Above the door is a circular opening. The plastered facade ends with a bell gable with a bell, on which the image of the Immaculate Conception is depicted. Panichi reports that the bell was donated by a certain Di Pasquale, in 1859, five years after the Immaculate Conception had been recognized as a dogma by Pope Pius IX.

Inside the building, in addition to the fresco and the altar, there is an interesting stoup, on the right, which seems to me to be a recovered element, perhaps an ancient capital. The side walls are frescoed with faux marble panels.

Probably this church, like that of San Rocco, was built during an epidemic to welcome pilgrims and the sick outside the town. Panichi has also collected a legend about the construction of the sacred building: two young aristocrats were going hunting in the Valle del Tronto and when one of the two uttered a foul language, the voice of the Virgin was heard reproaching. The small sacellum would have been built right where the prodigious event took place.

Over time, the church ended up giving its name to the district and until recently it was a tradition to celebrate a feast and mass there every first Saturday in June.

In 1836, when the works for the Colle Fruscione cemetery had stalled because the villagers did not want to bury their loved ones far from the church of the Madonna delle Grazie, the municipal administration of the time decided to build the municipal cemetery around the Cona church to "bring it closer" to the town, but the project was not followed up and the one away from the town was completed.