On the front of Santa Maria della Strada, outside the village, there is a whole stone bestiary: oxen with their legs dangling, peacocks drinking from a vase, a man blowing a hunting horn and deer running off, a knight killing the lion that has bitten his horse. In the porch two dragons devour two men: one swallows, the other brings its victim back up — death and resurrection.
The church is twelfth-century, built with stone taken from a Roman villa nearby, and has been a national monument since 1889. The village, 1,110 residents, took shape later: after the 1456 earthquake the people of the outlying farms shut themselves inside the walls, and in 1532 the land register counted a hundred and forty of them.
chiesa di Santa Maria della Strada
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Next up: Saint Urban and the Madonna della Strada, in procession on ox-drawn carts, Sunday 16 May
Nearest airport: Napoli Capodichino, 89 km away
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📅 Every year, on the third Sunday of May
Matrice celebrates Saint Urban on the third Sunday of May together with the Madonna della Strada, with a solemn procession from the town to the countryside church: the wooden statues parade on ox-drawn carts to the church entrance.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Matrice, but an easy day trip away.
