Church of St Francis

The construction of the Church was undertaken in 1265. The original building had a nave with transept, in a Gothic style with ribbed cross vaults and a polygonal apse.

The Church was gradually enlarged to become a three-nave building enriched with a larger Renaissance apse and monumental side chapels. One of these chapels was erected to house a precious silver tabernacle containing a relic of the Holy Cross.

From an artistic point of view, the pictorial decorations of the Paradisi Chapel stand out. They consist of a large series of frescoes commissioned by Monaldo Paradisi to the Foligno-born painter Bartolomeo di Tommaso, whose theme was the Last Judgment.

The large Franciscan altarpiece by Piermatteo d’Amelia was commissioned for the church and is now kept in the Municipal art gallery. Luigi Lanzi had the church declared a National Monument and when major renovations were undertaken, much of the Baroque decoration inside the church was removed. The bell tower adorned with mullioned and four-light windows and enriched by a string-course in polychrome ceramic is of particular interest.