The patron saints of Avezzano are Saint Bartholomew, to whom the cathedral is dedicated, mother church of the diocese of the Marsi, and Our Lady of Pietraquaria, proclaimed co-patron in 1978: the feast falls on 27 April, preceded on the 25th by a fair and, on the night between the 26th and 27th, by the lighting in various districts of the so-called focaracci, large devotional bonfires whose local tradition is documented at least since 1870. The cult of Our Lady of Pietraquaria has been documented since the 12th century, while the town feast in her honour has been officially attested since 1779.
The sanctuary dedicated to her stands in an area marked by the town's most dramatic history: the Marsica earthquake of 13 January 1915 razed Avezzano to the ground, destroying among other things the 16th-century church and the Capuchin friars' convent, along with the collegiate church of San Bartolomeo. After the quake, Bishop Pio Marcello Bagnoli promoted its reconstruction as part of the town's new urban layout, entrusted to engineer Sebastiano Bultrini, also author of the reconstruction's master plan: the new church, in Piazza Risorgimento, was consecrated in 1942 and damaged two years later by Allied bombing, before receiving its current Neo-Renaissance travertine facade.
