Ita
Leaving Porta Guelfa and passing the bridge over Timia, you arrive, going up, to the village of Torre del Colle, already known in medieval times as Torre San Lorenzo, ancient feud of the Counts of Antinano. Entering through a sandstone pointed arch, you pass under a vault and you get to a characteristic crossroads with thirteenth-century left houses whose walls are decorated with sandstone cannonballs. Continuing to the right there is an old house, which was a place of devotion of the Madonna della Valle in the 30s of the past century. In fact, between the village and the sanctuary there are endless and involving intertwinings. The facade appears very ruined and over the door you can hardly read: viva Maria via Gesu’ si pror […] le donne scandalose anno 1934 stortini pierino. Inside, after a run-down room with fireplace, you enter an environment with two frescoes on the back wall, both by the painter Turiddo Balicchia from Ancona, who realized them in 1935. The former represents the Holy Family and we read in one side: w Mary– w the King– w the Holy Palms and in the other w Jesus– w the Duce; the second one illustrates the Adoration of the Three Wise Men.
According to his nephew Ireno, Stortini Pierino was the coordinator of a widespread movement of veneration of the Madonna della Valle, but that took place above all in this house in Torre del Colle, where he had frescoed the image of Our Lady asserting that She had transferred there the seat of her graces. According to him, several supernatural events caused by the image of Our Lady were recorded, which solved the most disparate cases. That is why devotion increased, enriching the church with countless ex voto.
Along the walls of the castle a beautiful semi-cylindrical tower oriented towards the valley of Attone remains, inside which you breathe air of other times.
In front of the medieval tower there is a ruin of the old cemetery boundary wall, which existed under the village and which was eliminated to build the sewer network. The remains of the bones were transported to the Bevagna cemetery during the works carried out in the 1960s.
Today a large and unprecedented reuse project for the most significant environments has been realized (three-level tower, with the rediscovery of the strategic guard point terrace, the school building and the store). It has its centre of gravity around the ancient oil mill, now become a restaurant, to revive for public use a significant reality.
THE NEW CHURCH OF TORRE DEL COLLE
In the locality Ponte di Torre del Colle, hidden by vegetation, the new church of Torre del Colle stands.
The building is a typical structure of the architecture of the 70s, designed and built by the architect Piero Sartogo, the engineer Valenti and the firm Lanfranco Brizi from Faustana (Trevi). It is a church that contains within itself a symbolic universe of the Christian faith.
The altar, made by a sculptor, Baverly Pepper, who lives between Todi and New York, is provisionally made of iron. The project is particularly appreciated in the 70s by the Cardinal of Boston, who asks for a copy.
The fresco depicting the martyrdom of Saint Lawrence is the work of Clemens Klopfenstein, a Swiss artist who has lived in Bevagna for many years.
THE CHURCH OF SAN LORENZO
The church of San Lorenzo rises behind the perimeter walls of Torre del Colle, which was in the 14th century feud of the Counts of Antinano, precisely on the highest point of the small village. Its modest façade overlooks a pretty square from which you can see an idyllic panorama.
The original construction of the 10th century has undergone significant external modifications which do not change the early medieval style.
The Church of San Lorenzo gives its name to the entire village that rises around the small building of Christian worship.
Inside the Church of San Lorenzo there is a sixteenth-century canvas representing Madonna in Gloria and San Pietro, Paolo and Francesco. The work is attributed to Ascensidonio Spacca.
