Parish church of Santa Maria - PIetralunga
The parish church of Santa Maria rises majestically in Pietralunga’s Piazza Fiorucci. Its foundation dates back to the 7 th-8 th centuries as its title, one of the oldest of the ecclesiastical organization of the Diocese of Città di Castello, with which the Archpriest is installed as canon ab immemorabili extra muros (beyond the town walls since time immemorial), attests.
The church façade today is the result of a substantial modification carried out at the beginning of the 20th century, which involved the demolition of the apse to make room for this new main entrance and the closure of the original one. Inside, the church has an irregular rectangular plan with a single nave, simple and unadorned, interrupted only by large ridges that support the ogive vaults. The original apse was circular in shape, raised above the floor level and reached by a series of steps; it was demolished to make way for the new entrance. The present flat and square presbytery was built in the area of the ancient entrance. On the right wall of the nave there is a fresco, an interesting work attributed to Raffaellino del Colle, depicting the martyrdom of St. Sebastian, while inside the presbytery there is a copy of the Polyptych by Ottaviano Nelli, an illustrious painter from Gubbio active in the 15th century, a work coming from the Church of Sant'Agostino and transferred to the National Gallery of Umbria.