What to see · Civitanova Marche

More places of interest

• Chiesa di Cristo Re

  The church of Cristo Re is the main church of Civitanova Marche. It is a modern building, begun in 1933 to a design by the engineer Gustavo Steiner and completed only at the end of the nineteen-eighties, more than half a century later, thanks to the financial contribution of the town's fishermen and shipowners.

  What to see

  The church has a single nave and is notable for the stained-glass windows in polychrome glass that light it.

  The bell tower, designed by the architect Dante Tassotti, is a round-based tower 33 metres high, closed at the top by a cone-shaped spire. It is not only a bell tower, because it also serves as a lighthouse.

  Visiting

  The bell tower can be climbed, on foot by 285 steps or by lift. Mass times and access to the tower should be checked with the parish.

  Our editors' tip

  The light of the bell-tower lighthouse does not flash at random: it signals in Morse code the letters C and M, the initials of Civitanova Marche.

• Chiesa di San Marone

  The sanctuary of San Marone Martire stands in the San Marone district, in the lower part of Civitanova Marche. The church, originally Romanesque, was built on the site of the martyrdom of Maro, the town's patron and the first martyr of the Piceno. Around the turn of the first millennium, when people went back to living nearer the coast, they settled on the very hill of San Marone, where according to tradition the saint's remains had lain since the second century.

  What to see

  Today the church has a nave and two aisles, and keeps ancient architectural fragments from the original complex. On the façade, in the lunette above the main doorway, are the Virgin and Child between Saint Maro and Saint Domitilla: a late nineteenth-century work by Sigismondo Nardi.

  The saint's relics are kept beneath the high altar. Another part is in the collegiate church of San Paolo Apostolo, which also has a baptismal font of 1423 that tradition links to the patron.

  Visiting

  The sanctuary is a working church: mass times and opening hours should be checked with the parish.

  Our editors' tip

  In this sanctuary, on 13 May 1823, Sante Possenti, a papal governor, married Agnese Frisciotti of Civitanova: they are the parents of Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, the town's co-patron.

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