A first mention of the church of S. Mary of Canneto, as a building is found in the collective letter “Deum placare” of 25 November 1475, the contents of which are well known. With it the two cardinals of S.R.C., Bartolomeo Roverella and Giuliano della Rovere, the future pope Julius II, at the request of the commendatory abbot of Canneto, Francesco de Vulpinis, granted the “Church of the precipice monastery of S. Maria di Canneto of the Benedictine order in the territory of the castle (or fortified village) of Settefrati, diocese of Sora” one hundred days of indulgence to be enjoyed on certain days, including 22 August, so that the faithful would go up there more frequently to enjoy this spiritual benefit and at the same time offer their obolus for the restoration and maintenance of the same church.
Let us note some literary expressions in the document that are relevant to us:
- the first expression is this “Church of the Crag Monastery of the Blessed Mary of Canneto”.”, from which we deduce that the Marian temple and the Benedictine monastery must have been two separate and also detached buildings. One was functional but in need of repair, so Abbot de Vulpinis petitioned the Holy See for a contribution, while the other had been abandoned by the religious community for over a century,
which had descended to live in the surroundings of Settefrati, was now in ruins. This second building was located near the church, on the south side of the valley, at a slightly lower altitude and sheltered from winds and snowstorms. On its ruins, the well-known royal ironworks for the industrial exploitation of Canneto limonite arose in 1778. The ore was more precisely hydrated iron sesquioxide, one of the iron ores that can still be found in the area today. - The second literary expression concerns the sacred construction, proper, and says: “that the church be duly repaired and maintained in its structures and buildings”. “Structures and buildings”: two terms that are more appropriate to the new building works of today than those of five centuries ago.
Without forcing the meaning of the two words, I am of the opinion that the first term, “the structures”, means the perimeter walls, roof and internal pillars, while the second term, “the buildings”, means the classrooms or naves.
It must have been a three-nave church, of which the central one was slightly higher than the two side aisles, with a single pitched roof, covered with canals and with three entrances on the façade.
Taken from the book by Monsignor Dionigi Antonelli - La chiesa di S. Maria di Canneto: dalle antiche costruzioni all'attuale ristrutturazione generale