Description
The Church of Saint Mary of Graces, also named of the Visitation or of Saint Antony, in the hamlet of Fogliano, arose on the site of a country shrine in the middle of a crossroad where a girl, receiving the visit of Our Lady, was inspired to build a church just in that point. According to the tradition, some people rushing out of curiosity and devotion, saw the proportions of the church inspired by Our Lady, marked in the snow (the fact would happen in December).
For this reason, it was build in the XVI century (on the basis of possible comparisons, in the stylistic features of the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snow, repeated here in a minor key as for architectural decoration) thanks to the action of the spoletan bishop Fulvio Orsini. The carved stone portal, enriched by two leaning tapered columns, has a pediment and a tympanum with the emblem of the prelate (enclosing the curved archway with spiral wedge). Inside, besides the Virgin shrine on the back wall, has four other altars with frescoes of the Crucifixion and St. Anthony the Abbot, and the Annunciation of Our Lady of the Angels and the crib, of naive and lively narrative style by Giovanni Cortino from Bournemouth (late XVI century).