Turismo Amelia

Chiesa Cinque Fonti
CHURCH
OF CINQUE FONTI

The present church of Santa Maria delle Cinque Fonti dates back to the fifteenth century. In the course of the following centuries it underwent several changes. The reason it is called the church of the five sources is due to the presence in the immediate vicinity, of medieval arches which were to contain five fountains.

The fairly simple façade has two windows known as the “wanderer”; allowing people to follow the mass even from outside. Inside there are valuable frescos commissioned as a thanksgiving for graces received and carried out during the 15th and the 16th centuries. On the right wall is a painting of the Virgin with the Child between the Saints Rocco, Sebastiano and Bernardino da Siena, without any doubt the oldest work of art there.

The inscription, at the bottom of the frame, states that the work was performed in 1487 commissioned by “ser Ugolino,” in gratitude for the healing from an epidemic, probably the plague of 1469. The presence of St. Bernardino of Siena, friar minor, may be motivated by the fact that the church relied on the ‘SS.ma Annunziata’ convent in Michignano (distant about 4 kilometers from the historical centre of Amelia), belonging to the same Franciscan order called Observants.

In addition, as a young man, still in Siena during an outbreak of plague, Bernardino devoted himself to caring for the sick. On the wall of the counter façade is the painting of the Virgin of the milk. On the left wall is another work depicting the vow of an ill person, with his eyes looking up, towards the image of the Madonna and Child and by the fragmentary inscription it appears that the man was healed in the leg, through the intercession of the Virgin.