Santa Maria Maggiore was the main church of Ninfa, the vanished medieval town that is now a garden, in the territory of Cisterna di Latina. It was in all probability built from the tenth century and enlarged in the first half of the twelfth. Here, on 20 September 1159, Pope Alexander III was consecrated, having taken refuge at Ninfa under the protection of the Frangipane after the election contested with the antipope supported by Frederick Barbarossa. In the fifteenth century Onorato III Caetani carried out a general restoration. The church remained in use even after the end of the town, until the sixteenth century, and was then abandoned.
What to see
Today the ruins of the outer perimeter, the apse and the bell tower remain. It was a church with a nave and two aisles: the nave covered by a pitched roof, the two aisles by masonry vaults. The bell tower, Romanesque, is of the thirteenth century.
The apse is semicircular, and two frescoes can still be made out in it, one of St Peter, datable between 1160 and 1170. Other frescoes from the church were recently detached and are kept in the castle of Sermoneta.
Visiting
The ruins are seen during the visit to the Garden of Ninfa, which opens on set days: dates, bookings and tickets should be checked on the website of the Fondazione Roffredo Caetani.
Our editors' tip
Here the garden has taken over the church. Behind the building are a yellow bignonia, a group of yuccas and several rose beds; in front of the façade a smoke tree, with its pink feathery flower heads, and a cedar on whose trunk sits a tillandsia, a rootless plant that feeds on the moisture in the air.
