San Giacomo Maggiore Church and Museum of sacred art

The ancient church intra moenia of Massignano dedicated to San Giacomo (Major as apostle), of uncertain date, certainly stood in place of the current town hall.

In some documents of 1461 it is incorporated into the convent of the Augustinian friars (who in turn had their own church dedicated to Saint Augustine and Saint Monica)then suppressed in 1652 by Pope Innocent X who entrusted the building to the City and maintenance to the brotherhood of SS. Sacramento.

It was rebuilt in its current position in the second half of the 18th century and opened for worship in 1785 thanks to a generous bequest of Giuseppe Callisto Gentili, a nobleman of Aragonese descent who grew up in Massignano and then a councillor of state for Emperor Joseph II of Habsburg-Lorena, and designed by the architect Pietro Augustoni.

Of neoclassical style, it was opened to the cult in 1785.

Inside you can admire:

• A tempera on panel by the Venetian painter Vittore Crivelli (brother of the most famous Carlo, both emigrated to Piceno) before 1489 and depicting the Virgin adoring the child, restored in the first half of the twentieth century;
• An altarpiece with Immaculate Conception and Ss. Gervasio e Protasio, Francesco d’Assisi and Giacomo Maggiore by the painter Nicola Monti from Ascoli (late 18th century);
• A painting depicting the adoration of the shepherds with Saint Anthony of Padua by the artist Alessandro Ricci (late eighteenth century).

The church currently houses a Museum of sacred art that preserves, among other objects, a refined piviale embroidered in gold belonging to the same Gentili.