Chiesa di Santa Maria della Consolazione

Santa Maria della Consolazione is a Gothic-Angevin church in Altomonte, built under Filippo Sangineto over an earlier Norman place of worship. Its portal, rose window and funerary monuments reflect the town’s fourteenth-century history as the seat of a county.

Why it matters

The church is a major example of Angevin architecture in Altomonte. Filippo Sangineto, the first Count of Altomonte, commissioned its construction in the fourteenth century. The building once held important works by Simone Martini, Bernardo Daddi and the school of Giotto; the municipal history records that these panels are now in the Museo Civico in the former Dominican convent nearby.

What to notice

The façade combines a sculpted portal with a rose window formed from arches arranged like a wheel. Inside, the Latin-cross plan brings a broad transept together with a timber-roofed nave. Later Baroque side chapels sit against the older masonry. The church also preserves the Sangineto family monument, the tomb of Cobella Ruffo, a medieval knight’s tomb, a fresco fragment and a wooden choir of thirty-seven stalls.

Context and history

The church was built over an earlier Norman place of worship dedicated to Santa Maria de’ Franchis. The Comune dates its foundation to around 1336 and also records a building campaign in 1342–45; the Borghi profile gives 1342 as the year of consecration. The Sanseverino family expanded the church in the early fifteenth century. In 1443 it passed to the Dominicans, who established a monastery beside it. Its former convent now houses the Museo Civico, where works once associated with the church are preserved.