Travelcast Piceno - Audio & Video Guide per la Provincia di Ascoli Piceno

Along the straight road, which runs slightly upward and takes us to the Church of Santa Maria ai Monti, the local historians mention the discovery towards the end of the 1800s of an ancient burial ground. In the nearby countryside, along the road leading to Ripatransone or Cupra Marittima, near the Castle of Sant’Andrea, some necropolises of the Piceno people actually had been discovered. Included in the objects brought to light were funerary objects such as arms and large stone or metal rings having 4 or 6 protruding parts. These ornaments were laid on the graves of the females and their purpose is still unknown.

Continuing to walk straight ahead, we arrive at a large plaza with a cross at its centre. We are standing in front of the Convent complex of Santa Maria ai Monti, also known as Oasis from the moment that, at the beginning of the 1950s, Father Agostino Gemelli, founder of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart and President of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, asked if he would be allowed to make use of the Convent at least twice a year in order to organise meetings and conferences for men who were dedicated to scholarship and members of the clergy. The vocation for meditation has always been associated with this place. It seems that here, already at the end of the 1300s, a small church was erected as a votive offering against a pestilence and it was christened Santa Maria ai Monti. When, at the start of the 1600s it had been decided to rebuild it, care was taken to conserve the fresco with the Madonna and Child that was venerated in that church. The antique painting is still visible in the apse of the current building, which was built by request of Father Nicola of Monteprandone, of the religious order of the Franciscan Greyfriars. The monk found the site upon which the venerated church was to rise suitable for the settlement of a new community and Pope Clement VIII conceded authorisation for its construction in 1603.
During those years the monks continued to officiate in the antique church and only when the Convent had been completed was the current church built. Various restoration interventions on the building had strongly modified the original, destroying the antique oratory. Even the frescos of the cloister with the life of Saint Francis are almost all gone. Furthermore, due to a fire, the fresco of the Madonna and Child was seriously damaged, and only a small part of it remains.
The Convent complex also includes a vegetable garden and a vast garden with a wooded area of Holm-oak trees that had been planted by the monks in 1750. With the Neapolitan conquest and the revolt movements in the 1800s, the Convent had been occupied on several occasions and, following the unification of Italy, with the application of the laws that foresaw the expropriation of ecclesiastic property, it became property of the Municipality.
In 1879 the Municipality allowed the building to have private administration, composed of lay and clerical professors, for teaching at the elementary and high school levels as well as imparting technical education. The Convitto Peretti boarding school was in operation until 1918, and in 1937 the building was abandoned. In that year, by then in terrible shape, the complex of Santa Maria ai Monti was returned to the Provincial of the order, Father Ferdinando Parri of Monterubbiano, who had the church and Convent restored.
The week after Easter, this church celebrates the feast day of Saint Aurelius, a traditional devotion to this saint  that has very ancient origins.
At the end of the road that descends steeply from the plaza one finds Villino (Small villa) Speranza. This was the home of Giuseppe Speranza, scholar of local history who towards the end of the 1800s published the Guide to Grottammare. It was Giuseppe’s son, Alceo Speranza, former mayor of our town who at the beginning of the 1900s, as a Deputy in the Kingdom of Italy, named this place Vedetta Picena (Lookout of the Piceno), including the entire zone that goes from the Castle to the Oasis. The family archives, which had contained important and unique documents, had been destroyed by the Germans who were retreating from the territory during the Second World War.

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