Church SS. Pietro and Paolo

chiesa-ss-pietro-e-paolo

It is from time immemorial the mother church of the country, and the fact that it stands at the highest site, next to the castle, bears testimony to the antiquity. It is said in fact that during the dark years of the Middle Ages was connected to the feudal manor through an underground passage, but the hypothesis, although possible, is not supported by documents. For centuries, the square in front, which overlooked the old town hall as well, was the meeting place of “public parliament” and served as a cemetery.
The interior has a shape of a Latin cross, and a single nave. On the right wall of the nave opens a door, through a stone staircase leads to the burial of the noble principles of Morra, where in the wall are niches rest their bones in wooden boxes. Wing center of the floor of this burial ground opens a trap door under a stone slab. In this trap door there is a square space, not too wide with a stone seat to the side. On the ceiling of the landing, where the staircase begins, not visible, there is a room that is detectable by the window that you see on the outside wall of the church. It was said that the principles, when they felt threatened, through a tunnel sotterraneao penetrated the burial ground and then they got into this secret room, where they were hiding for the time necessary. Under the choir, the sacristy and the left arm of the cross, there are underground where they were in ancient times placed the dead. The local area under the sacristy was reserved for priests, the others were for other deceased. De Sanctis, in his book ‘The Youth’ speaks of the room where the priests were dead, sitting on a chair, which he had seen as a child to a hole in the wall of the church in front of his house, where he had climbed with a ladder.
Despite the damage of the last earthquake, they are still recognizable the Latin cross with a nave and the nearby bell tower, just a few meters from the castle. The square in front of the church and their walls, have been made recently in the place of the Church and of the Congregation of the house Strazza, which were demolished.

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