Tourist Attraction in Ascoli Piceno:
Chiostro Maggiore di San Francesco

The Cloister Major of St. Francis of Ascoli Piceno, popularly known as the Piazza delle Erbe, opens in an airy quadrangular space between Via del Trivio and Via d'Ancaria, near Piazza del Popolo and the theater Ventidio Basso. It houses, along with the Minor Chiostro of St. Francis, the architectural complex of the homonymous church. Its area is preceded by a front porch of 1300, supported by columns and pillars with octagonal and quadrangular, rather low, supporting the Gothic arches. Built in travertine and masonry, its elevation began in the year 1565 thanks to the great testament of the lord Giulio Antonio Santucci. Subsequently, for the liveliness and prodigality of Giovan Vincenzo Cataldi, he too lord ascolano, completed the manufacture of the north side. Its structure consists of 20 arches, all over six, five for each side, which develop on Corinthian columns resting on murky plinths. They undertook the construction of the Lombard masters Giacomo Giovanni and Giovanni Angelo of Marco da Bonera who concluded the works in 1623. At the center of its area you can see the well, finely decorated outdoors with gothic tortilla columns, not dissimilar to those Of the façade of the church of Saint Francis. On the wall of the porch is the oak plain that recalls the figures of Nicolò IV, the first Franciscan and Hellenic Pope, and Sixtus V, who both left the convent of the city. In a corner it finds its location a small source. This cloister hosts the herbal market every day, so in Ascoli is also identified as the Piazza della Verdura. Each year, in the day preceding the Quintana's chivalrous tournament, this space moves the historical procession, with the head of the Magnificent Messere, who reaches the square of the town cathedral in Piazza Arringo, where the Ceri Ceremony .On the cloister area, there is the classroom of the Oratory of St. Francis, now Sala Cola dell'Amatrice, returned to Ascoli, in March 2012, after a careful and accurate restoration work 'Municipal Administration chaired by mayor Guido Castelli. Over time, his space first welcomed the Capitol Hall, then in the 16th century it became the Oratory of the Corpus Domini and later the armory of the barracks and communal fishmongers. The conservative intervention encouraged the recovery of ornamental decorations in rococo style performed by Tommaso Marini and frescoes, some of them attributed to Cola dell'Amatrice. There are also five paintings by Cola dell'Amatrice belonging to the Corpus Domini Oratory depicting Old Testament themes and episodes of the life of King Nebuchadnezzar and rulers who have spent and lived experiences, moments and similarities similar to those of the Passion of Jesus, previously preserved in the parish hall of the convent of St. Francis.

Attractions in Ascoli Piceno