La Terra delle Meraviglie - Agriturismi, Bed&Breakfast, Hotel, Campeggi, Residences | Marche Ascoli Piceno | Sibillini Gran Sasso-Laga

A festival: this is templaria.  A festival about medieval culture, with theatre, music and dance, which proposes a step back into the past among the ancient stones of Castignano as a way of rediscovering and re-evoking its own memory.A programme full of performances, with the preparation of medieval settings, old craftsmen’s workshops, banquets and markets.  Each year a central theme connected to the Knights of the Temple offers cues for dramatics, studies, exhibitions, debates and conventions, so that a forgotten heritage can be rediscovered. The roman-gothic styled church of S. Maria del Borgo was raised in the XII century by the Templars.  It is adorned with two magnificent portals, one of which has a slightly acute arch with cornices in geometrically decorated brick and above a brick with the T (tau), or cross, the symbol of the order of Templars. In memory of their presence the “Via Templari”, the longest road in Castignano, winds alongside the Church; it runs between two rows of houses, narrow, cramped, silent and a little gloomy, it almost seems as if time has stood still.  The presence of the Templars in Castignano is certain because the town was the junction point of transit for pilgrims who travelled from Rome towards the ports to embark for the Holy Land. They left a significant influence on the history, economy and tradition of this charming Piceno town.

The proofs of that are, as already mentioned, the TAU carved on the church of S. Maria del Borgo, Via Templari and the Rationes Decimarum which at numbers 7791 and 7889 affirms the presence of the order of red knights. T