Chiesa di Santa Maria ad Nives (Santa Maria Vecchia)

Santa Maria ad Nives, known simply as Santa Maria Vecchia, ranks among the oldest sacred sites in the city. The baroque front gives little away: builders raised the first church in the sixth or seventh century. It stood beyond the walls, which shaped its first dedication, Santa Maria foris portam. Some scholars argue it even served as the first cathedral here. Blind arches still frame the tall upper windows, a style borrowed from the great basilicas of Ravenna.

Benedictines held it from 740, monks of Fonte Avellana followed, and the Cistercians arrived in 1515. In the winter of 1072, Peter Damian stopped at the monastery guesthouse on his way to the hermitage of Gamogna. The visiting theologian and cardinal, one of the city's patron saints, never resumed the journey: he died there on 22 February. Girolamo Conti's neoclassical chapel of 1858 honours him with monochrome frescoes and a terracotta statue by Filippo Galli. Bartolomeo Sauli began rebuilding in 1655 and turned the church around. The entrance now sits where the apse once stood, and one nave became three. Two columns of African breccia marble flank it, late Roman work crowned with Byzantine capitals from around the sixth century. Touch both, the tradition says, and Saint Peter Damian will protect you.

Beside the church rises an octagonal bell tower from the ninth or tenth century, built with stones that include genuine Roman masonry. A square base on slanting buttresses carries the shaft. The octagon wraps around an inner cylinder, with a spiral ramp running between the two walls. Artillery beheaded the tower in 1944, when it served as an observation post. After the war, builders restored the original form and cast the present bells in 1952, the largest weighing 695 kilos. Climb if the chance offers: at 51 metres, you get one of the highest views over the city.