Santa Maria Ester is an ancient,

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

church built in

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

style in the hill-town of Acquaviva Collecroce, in the

Province of Campobasso A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outsi ...

, Region of

Molise Molise (, , ; nap, label=Neapolitan language, Neapolitan, Mulise) is a Regions of Italy, region of Southern Italy. Until 1963, it formed part of the region of Abruzzi e Molise, alongside the region of Abruzzo. The split, which did not become effe ...

, Italy.

History

Santa Maria Ester was originally built in the second half of the 16th century by the

Knights of Malta The Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), officially the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta ( it, Sovrano Militare Ordine Ospedaliero di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme, di Rodi e di Malta; ...

. Also contributing to its erection were immigrant Croats who had participated in the Battle of Lepanto. That first church was rebuilt in Baroque style in 1715. The belltower is even more recent (1976) and replaces the older one razed in 1963. The church has a central cupola; in the interior, are housed 16th century canvases depicting ''Madonna Addolorata'', ''Santa Maria Ester'', ''Saint Michael Archangel'', ''Martyrdom of St Blaise'', and a ''Madonna del Carmelo''. It has two statues of ''St Michael'' and the ''Immaculate Conception'' by Di Zinno.Region of Molise tourism office
entry.

References

Baroque architecture in Molise Churches in the province of Campobasso 16th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Italy Roman Catholic churches completed in 1715 {{italy-church-stub