The church and convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie stand about three kilometres south-east of the historic centre of Senigallia and belong to the municipality. Before 1491 a small church called the Madonna del Pignotto stood here, perhaps named after the pines around it. The complex was designed by Baccio Pontelli for Giovanni Della Rovere, lord of the town, and built from 1491; according to the sources it arose from a vow for the birth of his heir Francesco Maria, born in 1490. The Friars Minor settled here in 1492 and stayed until 2008, for 515 years.
What to see
By 1538 Girolamo Genga, for Francesco Maria I Della Rovere, turned Pontelli's church into the choir and presbytery and added the nave, moving the entrance to the north; in 1626 the walls were lined with niches and pilasters and covered with a barrel vault. The complex was only finished in 1684 thanks to Vittoria Della Rovere, Grand Duchess of Tuscany: the doorway bears the arms of the Della Rovere and the Medici together. The convent is arranged around two cloisters, with Renaissance marble and reddish brick, and the 28 and 19 lunettes frescoed in 1598 by Pietro Francesco Renulfo with the life of Saint Francis.
The church holds Perugino's altarpiece of the Madonna enthroned with the Child and saints, returned after the building's restoration. In 1722 the fourteen Stations of the Cross shrines were built around the square; in 1851 Pius IX made it a parish, giving it the baptismal font.
Visiting
Closed in 2016 because of the decay of the roof and inner walls, the church reopened at the end of November 2024 after work by the municipality. The former convent houses the Sergio Anselmi Museum of the history of sharecropping, opened in 1978. Times should be checked.
Our editors' tip
Piero della Francesca's Madonna di Senigallia was also kept here; since 1917 it has been in the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche in Urbino: visitors to the Grazie can complete the story there.
