What to See in L'Aquila - Top Sights and Attractions

Basilica in Italy. Santa Maria di Collemaggio is a large medieval church in L'Aquila, central Italy. It was the site of the original Papal Jubilee, a penitential observation devised by Pope Celestine V, who is buried there. The church, which therefore ranks as a basilica because of its importance in religious history, sits in isolation at the end of a long rectangular sward of grass at the southwest edge of the town.

The church is a masterpiece of Abruzzese Romanesque and Gothic architecture and one of the chief sights of L'Aquila. The striking jewel-box effect of the exterior is due to a pattern of blocks of alternating pink and white stone; the interior, on the other hand, is massive and austere. Outbuildings include a colonnaded cloister, with the central fountain typical of many other similar Italian cloisters, and the former monastic refectory.

Parts of the structure were significantly damaged in the 2009 earthquake in L'Aquila and the church was reopened in 2017.^[3]

Catholic church in L'Aquila, Italy. Santa Maria del Suffragio, commonly called the church of Anima Sante, is an 18th-century church in L'Aquila, central Italy.

It was begun on October 10, 1713, ten years after the 1703 L'Aquila earthquake damaged the Confraternita del Suffragio's former seat.

The Roman architect Carlo Buratti was charged with the work. In 1770 Gianfrancesco Leomporri added a Baroque façade, and years later, in 1805, the church was completed with a neoclassical dome by Giuseppe Valadier.

Being one of the most important churches of the city, Santa Maria del Suffragio also became one of the main symbols of the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake when, on April 6, 2009, it suffered serious damages and its dome was almost entirely pulled down by the quake.

The extensive damage to the church was a direct consequence of a lack of retrofitting. Although The church received a great deal of funding to be architecturally restored and aesthetically 'upholstered' but lacked investment into the protection of its structural integrity; which is a disappointment as it was believed by many to be a building of cultural and architectural significance.^[9]

Catholic church in L'Aquila, Italy. Chiesa dei Santi Marciano e Nicandro is a church in L'Aquila, central Italy.

It was built in Romanesque style in the course of the 13th century, and, after it had been mostly destroyed by an earthquake in 1703, it was renovated in Baroque style. The church was again severely damaged by the earthquake which struck L'Aquila in 2009.

The façade in white stone dates from the 14th century. The portal has capitals with the Four Evangelists (left) and the Adoration of the Magi (right), and is surmounted by a circular window which in 1915 replaced the original rose window. The interior dates mostly from the 18th-century renovation, although the original 13th-century structure has survived in the apse exterior, in the presbytery and the clergy house. It houses 14th- and 15th-century frescoes and statues of St. Peter and St. Marcian.^[10]

Museum in L'Aquila, Italy. The Museo Nazionale d'Abruzzo is hosted in the Forte Spagnolo of L'Aquila.

The Museum is on three floors: on the ground floor, there is the giant skeleton of an Archidiskon meridionalis (improperly called mammoth, a prehistoric "elephant") found a few miles from Aquila in 1954, and an archeological section with pieces of the Italic pre-Roman period, a section with inscriptions and pieces from the Roman towns in Abruzzo, among them a fine Roman calendar from Amiternum (25 AD).

On the first floor the medieval and modern art section, with works of Abruzzese artists of the centuries 13-17th such as: the polyptych by Jacobello del Fiore; a Processional Cross by Nicola da Guardiagrele, a group of wooden and terracotta sculptures such as a St Sebastian by Silvestro dell'Aquila and another by Saturnino Gatti; paintings by Flemish and Roman and Neapolitan artists such as Sebastiano Conca, Giulio Cesare Bedeschini, Francesco Solimena, Francesco de Mura; finally the contemporary art section with such artists as M. Vaccari, Renato Guttuso, Virgilio Guidi, Giuseppe Capogrossi, Orfeo Tamburi, and Remo Brindisi.^[14]