The parish church of Castelvecchio is older than the village you see today: the first church went up in the twelfth century and was later raised to the rank of mother pieve, headed by an archpriest. In the fifteenth century an enlargement gave it three naves under wooden trusses and three apses.
What to see
On the gabled façade, which faces west, the thing to look for is to the right of the doorway: the frame of a fourteenth-century entrance, later walled up, carrying a Virgin and Child between two saints. The square bell tower is lightened by hanging arches and closed by a pyramidal spire. Inside, the central nave is barrel-vaulted and the side ones groin-vaulted; on the vault are frescoed Cardinal Virtues and a medallion of the Trinity crowning the Virgin. The wooden choir was carved in 1872.
Visiting
The church stands just outside the old village, in its lower part, and you pass it on the way up to the castle. Its past has left documented traces: in 1586 the apostolic visit of bishop Nicolò Mascardi counted four altars here and ordered the floor repaired and the walls whitewashed; the altar of the Madonna del Carmine was built in 1636. The earthquakes of 1970 and 1971 damaged the building, and restoration followed straight after.
Our editors' tip
Stop at the walled-up entrance before going in: it is the only fourteenth-century piece left in plain sight, and it says more than the present façade.