CASTIGLIONE IN CASAURIA. The church of Santa Maria dell’Assunta in Castiglione a Casauria, closed 21 years ago due to structural failures and subsequently damaged by the earthquakes of 2009 and 2016, will be renovated and reopened to the faithful. The mayor reconfirmed Biagio Petrilli announces the arrival of a Pnrr loan of one million and 430 thousand euros to start, within the year, the works on the mother church (for 37 years led by the late and unforgotten parish priest, Don Dino Golo) which is located in the historic village of the town of 800 inhabitants, in the same territory that boasts the presence of the abbey of San Clemente a Casauria.
«There is a project drawn up by the architect Max D’Aprile“, explains the mayor, “the contract will be delivered within the year and finally, after a series of requests made by this administration, we have managed to obtain these funds with which we will be able to secure the church and reopen it to the faithful, one day not too far away”. The time indicated by the mayor to renovate the building is about “one year, the consolidation work on the facade will have to be carried out” which has been supported by construction sites for years, “and inside the vaults, the floors, the arches, the decorations damaged by the various earthquakes that have occurred since 2009 will have to be fixed”.
The historian from Castiglione Antonio Alfredo Varrasso, a municipal employee with a strong connection to the area, recalls: «The first memories of the church of Santa Maria dell’Assunta (also known as the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, ndc) date back to the early Middle Ages and was completely renovated after the earthquake of 1706». On the website of the churches of the Italian dioceses we read that it was «Abbot Oldrio of San Clemente a Casauria who had it reconsecrated after the earthquake of 1706».
In 2003 the church was closed due to severe damage. Don Dino Golo fought for the renovation and noticed the first cracks and asked for help. The first consolidation works were started in the northern part and in the meantime the masses took place, as they still do today, in the fourteenth-century church of San Francesco also in the historic village. The situation inside is disastrous: «The precious canvases from the 17th and 18th centuries are ruined, as are the vaults and floors and the portal from the 1400s and the façade of tuff and mixed stone on the outside» which has been under construction for years. Now it’s up to the new Petrilli administration, installed after the party at the Puteche last Friday, to bring it back to its former glory.
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