Sant’Anna

The Sanctuary of Sant’Anna, originally dedicated to Maria Assunta and San Giovanni Battista, was built between 1570 and 1600 to replace the old cathedral located in the castle which had become insufficient for the needs of the population: it was consecrated in 1696 and was the cathedral of the diocese of Letters until its suppression in 1818. Among the various restoration and expansion works that have taken place over the years, those concerning the construction of the chapel of Sant’Anna, patron saint of the city, completed in 1721, are worthy of note.

Access to the church is given by a staircase in piperno while the bronze portal was created in 1982 by the sculptor Tommaso Gismondi on which scenes from the New Testament are depicted. Internally the church is a Latin cross, with a single nave with a coffered barrel vault and marble flooring; among the various works present paintings and statues dating back mostly to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in particular, on the high altar is the canvas of the Assumption of the Virgin by Giuseppe Martorelli. The statue of the patron saint dating back to 1503 is kept in the chapel of Sant’Anna, as well as the reliquary busts of the saints Orso, Clemente, Candida and Lucida.