Chiesa parrocchiale di Santa Maria (Roiano)

Santa Maria stands in the small square of Roiano, a hillside hamlet of Campli. The nineteenth-century parish church preserves a painted terracotta Madonna brought from the older church of Santa Maria ad Venales.

Why it matters

The transfer of the statue connects two distinct buildings and successive chapters of local religious life. The newer church brought the parish into the village rather than leaving it at the isolated site of Le Venali.

What to notice

Brick frames the portal and round window beneath the gabled facade. Inside, a single nave leads to a raised presbytery separated by a balustrade. Paintings depict the Deposition and the Madonna di Pompei. The polychrome terracotta Madonna, originally enthroned with the Child, belongs to the figurative tradition associated with Nocella.

Context and history

The older Santa Maria ad Venales was the predecessor of the village church, not another name for the present building. Its surviving devotional sculpture became part of the nineteenth-century parish’s artistic inheritance.