The church of S. Giovanni Battista in Torre di Palme is the oldest building in the medieval village. Find out the buiding’s history.
The church of San Giovanni Battista in Torre di Palme is the oldest building in the medieval village. The original structure is probably attributable to the IX-X centuries, when the first community of Eremitani di S. Agostino, a religious order born in the mid-thirteenth century that significantly contributed to urbanizing the area, arrived on the site of the Turris (hill) of the ancient city picena di Palma (Turris Palmae) and built the place of worship.
In a pontifical document from 1188, a seal by Pope Clement III, the Church of San Giovanni Battista was included among the property and churches belonging to Santa Maria a Mare convent in Torre di Palme. After Pope Leo X’s seal (1516), the property belonging to the priorate of Santa Maria a mare were annexed to those of Capitolo Metropolitano of Fermo Cathedral dedicated of the Assumption and managed by canons, as still today.
The building has a rectangular layout and a single nave, it underwent important restoration works in 1930 (testified by a gravestone dedicating the Church to the fallen in sea and earth) and a new restoration in 1996.
Realized almost entirely with regular stone ashlars, it shows a hut coverage supported by a structure of trusses. The facade is higher than the building’s body and raised compared to the road level; the crawl space is decorated with round hanging arches, below which a frieze decorating the gate was added.
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