Description of the attraction
San Francesco alle Scale is a church in Ancona, located at the top of the stairs leading from the square of the same name. The church was built in 1323 by monks from the Franciscan order, and was originally called Santa Maria Maggiore. It received its current name in the middle of the 15th century.
The splendid portal of San Francesco alle Scale was made in 1454 by the Dalmatian master Giorgio da Sebenico, who was inspired by the late Gothic Porta della Carte of the Doge's Palace in Venice. In the 18th century, the church was raised on its foundations and enlarged somewhat by the project of the architect Francesco Maria Charaffoni, who was also the author of two adjacent monasteries and two covered galleries - cloisters.
After the French occupation, the building of San Francesco alle Scale was used as a hospital, and from 1920 it housed the City Museum. In 1953, the church was restored and reopened to the public. The 18th century bell tower, which was destroyed during the air raids on Ancona in 1944, was also restored - it was rebuilt in the same place.
The main feature of the façade of San Francesco alle Scale is the aforementioned portal, designed by Giorgio da Sebenico, decorated with an ornament depicting twenty heads. On the sides are two tall pilasters with four niches in which there are statues of saints. Above the portal is a Gothic lunette with a bas-relief of St. Francis, and above it is a shell with a hexagonal canopy. A portal leads to a staircase that was rebuilt in the 1920s.
The interior of the one-nave church was made in the 18th century. Here are the works of Pellegrino Tibaldi, Gioacchino Varle, Andrea Lilly and the huge "Assumption" by Lorenzo Lotto. Once within the walls of San Francesco alle Scale, one could also see an altarpiece made by the great Titian in 1520.
