Church of Santa Maria Maddalena

The Borrominian suggestion is also reinforced by the presence of four side doors (painted in grotesque), the single order of lesenes and the oval shape of the chanting. The monastic community had consolidated relations since the beginning of the seventeenth century with the Filipino Fathers of the Roman Convent of S. Filippo Neri, where between 1637 ca. and 1660 ca. Borromini is active. Of particular interest are the wooden furnishings, whose ornaments of high artistic quality distinguish the stately environment of the monastery. A recent restoration has restored the original materials and colours by removing the superstructures accumulated over the centuries. The vault, marked by stucco decorations, is adorned in the center with a fresco (sec. XVIII) depicting St. Mary Magdalene brought to heaven by angels. On the sides, inside the stucco-framed medallions, are the Evangelists. The painting on the high altar was painted by the Flemish painter Ernst De Schaych (Utrecht, 1567-1631) in 1617 during a stay in the Marches that led him to work in other places of the region. It is a representation of the Madonna della Cintola, representing the Madonna in throne with the Child who give the belts, symbol of the Augustinian order, to S. Augustine and S. Monica, surrounded by figures of kings and queens, Popes and bishops, in reference to temporal and spiritual power. In the foreground, at the lower end of the painting, are the busts of four saints (St. Francis, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Joseph and St. Bernardino from Siena).Below the date and signature of the artist, are the initials and coat of arms of the family Innocenzi di Ostra Vetere, who commissioned the painting on the occasion of the appointment as vicarage mother of a niece of a nun at the Monastery of S. Maria Maddalena. The canvas painted in 1668 by the artist from Ferrara, Clemente Maioli, testifies to the passage of the artist in the Marche region after his stay in Rome, where he was active from 1634, and before returning to Ferrara in 1671 a.C., a few years before his death. The work on the left altar represents the Assumption of the Virgin, with Our Lady carried to heaven by a choir of angels before the Apostles gathered in prayer around the tomb. The balanced scenic construction of the clearly Emilian-derived space, together with the attention to Venetian culture (Tintoretto), are taken from a work by Annibale Carracci on the same subject, preserved at the National Art Gallery in Bologna. On the altar on the right is a canvas ascribable to the scope of local painting of the second half of the seventeenth century.It represents the Madonna of Carmel, with the crowned Virgin and the Child, while he holds out his scapular to Simon Stock, English friar founder of the Carmelite order, never officially canonized but highly venerated in the Catholic church. According to tradition, the scapular saves from the fire of hell the one who wears it. They surround the figure of the friar S. Chiara, S. Bonaventura, S. Sebastiano and S. Pietro Martire, a Dominican friar who suffered martyrdom in the fight against heresies. At the bottom half of the bust are five other saints: S. Caterina d’Alessandria, S. Lorenzo, S. Filippo Neri, S. Nicola da Tolentino and S. Agata. Behind the main altar is visible, through a golden grate, the organ Andrea Gennari 1827/1828, restored in 2001 and still working. The organ houses a drum and bells, as was often the case for the Italian organs of the nineteenth century.