Santuario di Santa Sperandia

The Sanctuary of Santa Sperandia preserves the memory and relics of Cingoli's co-patroness, a Benedictine nun from Gubbio who died in 1276. The church combines a long history of worship with paintings, marble altars and furnishings associated with the Benedictine community.

Why it matters

The sanctuary stands over the remains of an earlier Christian-Lombard building dedicated to the Archangel Michael. The present church was rebuilt several times from the thirteenth century onward. Sperandia spent her final years with the Benedictine nuns at Cingoli, where she died on 11 September 1276. The Church recognised her cult in 1635, and in 1761 a proper Office and Mass for her feast were granted to the monastery and diocese.

What to notice

The high altar, completed in 1639 in Verona marble, is topped by Pier Simone Fanelli's seventeenth-century painting of the Miracle of the Cherries. The first altar on the right holds a Madonna and Child painted in 1526 by Antonio da Faenza. The seventeenth-century choir gallery and wooden grilles, or gelosie, are attributed to the Scoccianti workshop. The camera della Santa, the room where Sperandia lived, was later arranged as a sacred oratory. Tradition also associates the room with one of the two small shoes she received in Rome.

Context and history

Sperandia was born in Gubbio in 1216 and is remembered for pilgrimage and acts of peacemaking in the Marche. Local accounts recall the miracle of the cherries and a reconciliation between Cingoli and Jesi. The church was consecrated in 1560; records from 1573 document the nuns' observance of the Camaldolese rule, later the Cassinese use. The monumental complex took shape in the mid-eighteenth century. Benedictine nuns from Osimo repopulated the community in 1898, and it remains part of the Federazione Picena delle Monache Benedettine.