Church of Sant'Andrea (Cessapalombo)

What to see in the Church of Sant'Andrea

The main reason to stop is the wooden statue of the Madonna dell'Impollata, kept inside the church. For a list of other religious buildings in the area, see the page on the churches of the Sibillini Mountains.

Where the Church of Sant'Andrea is

The church is in the municipality of Cessapalombo, in the Marche region, in the province of Macerata. The municipality includes several hamlets, among them Montalto, Tribbio, Col di Pietra, Monastero and Villa di Montalto.

Around the Church of Sant'Andrea

Among the religious buildings of the municipality, the church of San Benedetto at Montalto dates from the 13th century and keeps frescoes by Giovanni Andrea De Magistris, dated 1526 and 1544. In the hamlet of Monastero stands the abbey of San Salvatore, also called Santa Maria in Insula, isolated outside the village. Its crypt has cross vaults resting on nine sandstone columns with carved capitals. In the hamlet of Villa, the church of Santa Maria Ausiliatrice keeps a 15th-century fresco. The Grotta dei Frati, between Cessapalombo and Fiastra, takes its name from the friars who lived there: first the Benedictines, around the year 1000, then, from the 13th century, the Clareni, dissident Franciscans.

For fortifications, there are the Montalto Castle and the Rocca di Col di Pietra, which once rose sheer above the Fiastrone river and of which only a few ruins remain today. Nearby natural sites include the Gola del Fiastrone (the Fiastrone gorge), whose trail is closed by ordinance, and the Lame Rosse, the latter in the municipality of Fiastra.

In Tribbio, below the Castello di Montalto, Palazzo Simonelli was home to the Pro Loco tourist information point, the Casa del Parco (park visitor center) and the Museo delle Carbonaie (charcoal-burning museum): it has been unusable since the 2016 earthquake, and in 2025 renovation work was underway. This is the place to ask for useful tips on planning the visit.