Description
Coming in Roccaporena from Cascia, the Church of Saint Montano is preceded by the Sanctuary of Saint Rita (1946) and from the House of Pilgrim.
The original plan dates back to the XIV century. The facade (revealing Gothic features, while inside Romanesque elements are prevailing), surmounted by a belfry, has two entrances, in the lunette of one of them is a fifteenth century fresco (umbrian painters influenced by senese school) depicting Our Lady. The Saints Rita and Montano are in stained glass windows. The small belfry, approximately developing from the center of the facade, is part of the original structure of the church, when it consisted of only the left nave with the small apse.
The interior is divided in two naves, covered by vaults; in the left nave, added in XVI century, are niches decorated by frescoes with images of Saints (amongst them, in the second niche, the hermits Macario and Bordone), from 1570, work of painters from Valnerina. On the pillar at the font is painted a Crucifix between Saint Anthony and the Blessed Rita (with a halo although not yet blessed), the authors are the Sparapane. Some other votive frescoes from the XV and XVI centuries, one of them with the Holder Saint`s image, are on the right wall, unfortunately in bad state of preservation and heavily restored. They are the work of an artist from Valnerina, receiving the influence from Marche, from the early XV century. On the dome of the apse (the only part remaining from the original Romanesque nave) is the Coronation of the Virgin; the underside of the arch is decorated with scrolls faced in the Renaissance style. Also the sixteenth-century stone baptistery is in Renaissance style. In sacristy, Lascaris found (1712) a chalice of golden copper conic cupped from the XVI century and a very simple processional cross of umbrian jewelry from the late XV century.
In this Church, Margaret Mancini (Santa Rita) married Paul Ferdinand (Ghibelline of good local family), at the age of fifteen (around 1386), and here were the remains of Her family.