On the hilltop of Campi Vecchio, at about 711 metres, the small church of Santa Maria delle Grazie — also known as the Madonna della Neve — was the last building left standing in the upper part of the castle, evidence of what was once a much denser settlement. The earthquake of 26 October 2016 destroyed it completely.
Its story carries an odd reversal of names. In the Middle Ages the hilltop castle was called Campi Nuovo, the new Campi, while the settlement below was Campi Vecchio; in the modern era, as life shifted downhill and the upper village emptied, the names swapped places. The church was one of eight once enclosed within the castle, alongside two convents — Ursuline nuns and Franciscan friars — that had long since fallen into ruin.
What to see
What remains is photographs and memory. It was a small, plain building: a gabled roof, a facade with a single doorway and, to the right, a bell gable with two openings. A lintel carried the carved date 1630, though the foundation is thought to be older. The single-nave interior held three altars; the main one bore a canvas of the Madonna and Child, while the paintings of Saint Cajetan and Saint Charles on the side altars had been stolen long before, one chapter in years of looting that had stripped the church almost bare.
Visiting
Campi lies on the Castoriana valley road, the old link between Norcia and Visso. Whether you can climb to the top of Campi Vecchio, where the church stood, depends on the condition of the site and the post-earthquake works. The reason to come is the place itself: from up here the castle-and-village pattern that shaped settlement for centuries reads clearly, with the plain below where the ancient Civitas Campli — Sabine, then Roman, then medieval — once stood.
Our editors' tip
Mass was said here just once a year, on 2 July, the feast of the Madonna delle Grazie — a date that tells you this had long been a church of memory rather than a working parish, and it remains the most fitting day to pass through Campi. Combine the stop with the church of Sant'Andrea lower down: together they explain what this hillside castle was before 2016, and what its reconstruction will need to give back.