Santa Maria delle Rose is a

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

-style,

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

church located in the town of

Sant'Angelo in Pontano Sant'Angelo in Pontano is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Macerata in the Italian region Marche, located about south of Ancona and about south of Macerata. It stands in pleasant position with a panoramic view over the adjacent val ...

, province of Macerata, region of

Marche Marche ( ; ), in English sometimes referred to as the Marches ( ) from the Italian name of the region (Le Marche), is one of the Regions of Italy, twenty regions of Italy. The region is located in the Central Italy, central area of the country, ...

, Italy.

History

A male eremitic monastery was founded at the site in the 7th century, that was subsidiary to the

Abbey of Farfa Farfa Abbey () is a territorial abbey in northern Lazio, central Italy. In the Middle Ages, it was one of the richest and most famous abbeys in Italy. It belongs to the Benedictine Order and is located about from Rome, in the ''comune'' (munic ...

. In the 15th century, it passed to a

Benedictine The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

order of nuns, and the site likely housed a small Romanesque-style church for use by the cloistered nuns. The present church was refurbished in 1764. The layout includes a single nave with semicircular apse. In 1810, the monastery was suppressed, only to be re-opened in 1822. But in 1861, all the property was expropriated and much was sold; in 1880, the nuns were expelled. They moved into local private houses, and maintained as possible a cloistered life. Only in the 1990s, did the convent re-establish expansion. The interior of the church is highly decorated in

fashion. The main altar has a frame flanked by columns with gilded capitals. The barrel-vault ceiling has stucco decoration, but also frames tempera paintings depicting ''St Joseph, St John the Evangelist and the Assumption of the Virgin''. The original paintings were moved to the new monastery in via Castello and include a ''Madonna of the Roses and Saints Benedict, Peter and Francis of Paola'', attributed to Domenico Malpiedi and an altarpiece depicting the ''Divine Shepherdess'' (1776), also known as the ''Madonna of the Roses'' by

Nicola Monti Nicola Monti (21 November 1920 – 1 March 1993) was an Italian opera singer, one of the leading tenori di grazia of the 1950s. Born in Milan, Italy, Monti studied voice from an early age, and made his debut in concert in Florence in 1941, a ...

.Tourism office of Macerata
by Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio Provincia di Macerata, entry on the church.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maria delle Rose, Sant'Angelo in Pontano Baroque architecture in Marche 18th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Italy