Chiesa di Santa Maria della Fratta

Santa Maria della Fratta in San Daniele was rebuilt around 1348 beside the medieval walls and entrusted to a lay brotherhood in 1350.

Why it matters

The church brings together the town's medieval religious and defensive histories. A wall tower is incorporated into its apse, and a bell cast in 1308 documents the building before its post-earthquake reconstruction. The church was associated with the confraternity known locally as the Madone de Frate.

What to notice

The dressed-stone facade bears a 1469 plaque and an inscription recording consecration in 1487. Giorgio da Carona's portal shows Mary and the Child with angels, crowned by a bust of God the Father. A bell-chamber window was cut by Donato da Lugano in 1501. Inside, a fifteenth-century fresco depicts a falcon hunt; other historic furnishings include a seventeenth-century altar and a painting of the Deposition.

Context and history

The church was rebuilt after the mid-fourteenth-century earthquake, supported by a bequest from notary Bajamonte, and passed to the confraternity in 1350. Its position beside the walls gave it a secondary defensive role. The fifteenth century brought the stone facade and consecration, followed by the bell-chamber window. In January 1918 German soldiers removed the bells; the smaller, dated 1502, broke, while the 1308 bell survived and documents the church's earlier existence.