| Capodacqua |
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Coordinates: Latitude Longitude Altitude: 839 m above sea level Inhabitants: capodacquari Telephone code: 0736 Postcode: 63096 Position: Place Name: Its name comes from its vicinity to a perennial source of water Places of interest: Among the buildings of greater historical interest there is the church of Madonna del Sole.The oldest houses in Capodacqua are those near the ditch which comes down from the mountain. Following the bad earthquake of 1730 the houses were rebuilt, so those that you see are from the middle of the XVIII century or after. Their facades present spacious wooden balconies of a characteristic structure.At the end of the XIX century they were called “profernum”, which in Medieval Latin meant the arcade or gallery that was used to dry wool.The balconies of Capodacqua are made from chestnut wood because it is very resistant to bad weather. They took up all the length of the house facade facing the sun. The brackets, which jutted out for about a metre and supported the plank floor, were squared-off logs that were attached to the roof by means of wooden uprights. These balconies are a typical construction of the medieval period and belong to the “gafio” type of Longobard origin. CHURCH OF MADONNA DEL SOLE A building with an octagonal floor plan attributed to Cola dell’Amatrice. The date 1558 is cut into the pretty bell gable, which, built around 1528, has a central plan and a rather elegant elevation that is also seen in other places in the central Appenine area. The octagonal floor plan of the church is of purely symbolic value: the octagon, a shape midway between a circle (the sky) and a square (the earth), represents the salvation that the Virgin, through her son, ensures for believers. The facade is embellished with decorations portraying the sun and the moon above the main portal, in the shape of a metope and a rose window.Both the sun and the moon link the image of Mary and of the temple itself to a sacred cosmology where faith and spirituality are in harmony with the rhythms of life. The inside of the church has frescoes from the VI century that are attributed to various artists: the most interesting one is certainly the Assumption of the Virgin, a Renaissance work.
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