Teramo

Santuario della Maddonna delle Grazie

Teramo is the capital of the province of Teramo in the Italian region of Abruzzo. Near the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga, on the first Apennine foothills of northern Abruzzo, Teramo enjoys a splendid panoramic position between the highest peaks of Abruzzo and the nearby Adriatic coast.

Understand

In 2023, it was home to 51,000 people.

History 

The ancient city of Teramo was called Pretut, and it was the most important center in the area. City of the Pretuzi, it is said that it was founded by the Phoenicians as a commercial emporium and was independent until the 3rd century BC, when it was subjected to the Romans who changed its name to Interamnia Pretutiorum, "city between the rivers" (in particular the Tordino and the vezzola). With Rome the city experienced a period of great prosperity thanks to the connections with the capital. Temples, the theatre and the amphitheatre were built.

The barbarian invasions exposed it to the sack of the Visigoths in 410 AD, who razed it to the ground. Its reconstruction took place in 568; subject to the Normans, it was then a bishop's domain, a period that saw the construction of the new cathedral in the 14th century. At the end of the century the lordship of the Acquavivas was established, which silenced for a while the internal struggles that characterized social life in Teramo. Occupied by the French at the end of the 16th century, it returned to the Spaniards and to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies whose events it followed until the unification of Italy.

Get in

By plane

Nearest airports are Pescara (1.0 hour) and Rome (2.5 hours).

By train

There is train station about 1 km from downtown Teramo. There are no direct trains from Rome and most trains go to Giulianova.

By car

From Rome and west, through A24 highway, exit Teramo.

From north and south, through A14 highway, exit Teramo-Mosciano.

By bus

The bus (pullman) travels from Piazza San Francisco to the Tiburtina Rail Station in Rome.

Get around

An excellent walking town. You can easily get around on foot.

See

• 1 Medieval village, Della Monica Castle, Via del castello. The medieval village is a complex of 19th-century buildings built on the small hill of San Venanzio, through an extravagant fusion in a single structure of different architectural and artistic styles, from Neo-Gothic to Moorish, with numerous contaminations deriving from the many training experiences gained over time by its author and owner Gennaro della Monica. This group of buildings and green areas is also identified, less exactly, with the denomination of Castello Della Monica. The building is being renovated and its interior can not be visited. (updated May 2023)
• 2 Cappuccini's church, Viale Mazzini. The chronicles report that the church was founded in 819; then had numerous remakes. The portal is in stone ashlars, and the facade has decorations made with cut bricks or geometric shapes rhomboidal brick, a type of decoration that leads back to the decorations of the ancient cathedral of Sancta Maria Aprutiensis. Of the extension of the fourteenth century, with the addition of two naves, remains the right aisle, interrupted by the inclusion of rooms used as sacristy, as well as small chapels, which show sixteenth-century features. There is no trace of the ancient cloister the church had. The building preserves an inlaid tabernacle and 18th-century wooden altars by Giovanni palombieri and his school; also 18th-century paintings are the high altar, which shows on the back more ancient works ascribable to the end of the 16th century. A Madonna and Child by Giacomo da Campli, once belonging to the church, is exhibited in the collections of the Pinacoteca Civica. (updated May 2023)
• 3 The Church of Santo Spirito. The Church is in Largo Proconsole along corso Porta Romana. Its origins are very old, and probably date back to 1200. During the 17th-18th centuries, the church underwent a total baroque makeover and today nearly nothing of the old medieval building is left. The brick facade, has a huge central window crowned with a tympanum, with frames and four pilasters with mirrors inside. The triple tympanum architrave has two side members linked to it by plant motifs and curlicues, while the frame above it has a double Constantinian cross symbolizing the brotherhood that lived into the Church. The facade is split vertically by four framed pilasters, elongated, blind niches, which enliven the structure. The bell tower is one of the most interesting elements. Its rectangular plan, result of various rearrangements undertaken during the Renaissance, as the spire suggests, is divided by a frame in three floors with arches that are blind in the first two sections; the one of the belfry has small holes for the bells. The structure ends with four small corner towers, with a string course frame sail at their centre, overlooked by a smaller sail. Inside the church are three naves; in the central one there’s a dome with a lantern, behind the altar an altarpiece dated 1568 representing the Pentecost. The elliptic dome, visible from the outside, has a decorative group representing the four Cardinal Virtues, the side windows have sumptuously decorated arch frames finished with painted gold. The wonderful organ was made by Vincenzo Paci in1864, it is above the wooden choir supported by corbels. (updated May 2023)
• 4 Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta. The Cathedral of Teramo was commissioned by Bishop Guido II; its construction began in 1158 and was dictated by the need to rebuild the city that had been destroyed and set on fire, including the ancient cathedral of Sancta Maria Aprutiensis. In the fourteenth century the bishop Nicolò degli Arcioni provided for its expansion; other works took place in the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, when the Cathedral was adapted to Baroque forms which a repair intervention in 1932 fortunately eliminated. The 2007 restorations helped to further restore the original features of the building.
  The church shows both Romanesque and Gothic stylistic influences and has the particularity of having two opposite facades. The most spectacular one overlooks piazza Orsini and has the characteristic horizontal crowning of most of the churches of Abruzzo; here the horizontal façade is decorated with battlements and interrupted by the slender tympanum which, starting from the central portal, develops in height for the entire façade and beyond, considerably slimming and enlivening the whole. The imposing splayed portal is decorated by a frieze with mosaics welcoming angel musicians and by twisted columns and small columns, supported by two crouching lions.
  The other façade, opposite to the main one, overlooks piazza Martiri della Libertà; it is less striking, with a simpler and more linear style. The access door, located at the end of the staircase, is a false door that serves as an embellishment. Since the year 2000, the bronze work performed by Venanzo Crocetti from Giuliese has been inserted inside the light space of the fake passage, which represents the Annunciation.
  The interior of the imposing building is marked by three naves with columns and round arches of considerable momentum. The altar displays a work of great value: a silver frontal made up of thirty-five embossed and chiseled gilded silver plates, depicting episodes from the life of Christ, a fifteenth-century work by the engraver Nicola da Guardiagrele. Another great work is the sixteenth-century Polyptych of Sant'Agostino, also from the fifteenth century,
  In addition to the undeniable beauty of the church, the bell tower gives prestige to the cathedral, which is one of the best examples of Lombard Gothic existing in Abruzzo . The lower part was built between 1100 and 1200; in the fourteenth century two floors were added; In the fifteenth century the octagonal spire, whose corners are surmounted by cusps or small towers. (updated May 2023)
• 5 Roman theater, Paris street. The theatre was built in a period of great economic prosperity for the city, at the beginning of the 2nd century BC, during the empire of Hadrian. The fabric of the urban centre of the time extended between Martiri della Libertà square and the Sanctuary of the Madonna delle Grazie, between Stazio street and Torre Bruciata it was surrounded by walls. The area destined for the theater expanded into 20 arches of travertine blocks that surrounded the cavea, some are still visible. The bleachers, arranged in a semicircle, could accommodate around 3,000 spectators. The passage of time has seen it being included and partially covered by the construction of houses, looted in the Middle Ages when it became a sort of stone quarry intended for the elevation of other buildings. (updated May 2023)
• Roman domus. The archaeological evidence of the Roman city are important. The four domus brought to light by excavations are importants archaeological evidence of the Roman city: the Domus of largo Torre bruciata; the Domus of Madonna delle Grazie; the Domus of Porta Carrese; the Domus Savini or of the Lion. (updated May 2023)
• Sor Paolo Proconsole. It's a statue built in the 1st century BC who portrays the Roman dignitary togate Paolo Proconsole. This effigy is very beloved by all the Teramo's citizens and it enjoys of great simpathy and popularity. In Teramo, this statue is called with the name:<<Gnor Paolo>> or <<Sor Paolo>>. It held ,during time, an important role as a speaking statue inside the social life. On his left hand were tucked satire tickets, complaints and riots directed to the rulers and lords of the city. More recently the leafleats have been entrusted poetries of love and the football fans delivered their flags to the statue in order to show them. (updated May 2023)
• The Madonna delle Grazie Sanctuary. It is one of the religious buildings the inhabitants of Teramo most hold dear. The community is very fond of it and very involved in the feast day on July 2nd, dedicated to the Madonna delle Grazie, whose miracles are very often connected with popular beliefs and historical events.
  The Sanctuary was built before 1156. It was restored towards the end of the 17th century and again in the 19th century. During the 20th century, it was reinforced after the collapse of part of the lodge.
  Today it stands completely modernized in its Neo-Renaissance look due to the last rebuilding in 1892-1900, by the architect Cesare Mariani. The facade of the church, made of bricks, displays a central rose window and two rectangular windows on both sides. It is elegantly adorned by a small portico with round arches (surmounted by a tympanum) and three entrance portals. The fresco, portraying the Virgin Mary and the Saints, decorating the lunette of the main portal was attributed to Giacomo from Campli.
  The floor plan, a rectangular nave, has three chapels on each side and it ends in an apse. The ceiling is supported by a rib vault and has a hemispherical dome with frescos by Cesare Mariani, dating back to the late 19th century. Inside the church not only will you be struck by the frescos but also by the wooden polychrome statue, which dates back to the 15th century. The statue truly is a masterpiece of local art, credited to Silvestro dell’Aquila. It represents a Madonna delle Grazie who is sitting holding the Holy Child on Hher lap. The detached fresco with the Maestà in a 15th century architectural context with a tympanum is preserved in a side chapel and attributed to Pietro Alemanno. This work of art uses the genre of the sacra conversazione (holy conversation), a depiction of the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus on either side. On one side there is a bishop. Who is probably the patron saint of Teramo, saint Berardo and there’s also a saint who’s been identified by scholars as the Bizantine saint Paraskevi of Rome. Local historian Francesco Savini credited it to Carlo Crivelli, an important Venetian, late-Gothic artist, operating in nearby Ascoli Piceno. However, in the Sixties, art critic Ferdinando Bologna identified Pietro Alemanno as its painter. The side chapels hold more recent works by distinguished local artists such as Gennaro Della Monica, Vittorio Scarsellli, Giacinto Strappolatini and Pasquale Celommi.
  The cloister of the convent is a valuable part of the building, evidence of the ancient medieval building, with stone columns and capitals in the Lombard-Byzantine style, dating back to the 12th century.
  The church keeps a considerable number of votive offerings, the oldest ones dating back to the 15th century, including a silver relief with a Nativity scene from 1565, two eighteen-century chalices of Neapolitan manufacture and a remarkable group of sacred vestments made around the and 16th century and first half of the 18th century. (updated May 2023)

Do

• Go on an Italian Volksmarch! Around the third Sunday in July, there is a nature hike called Hike of the Three Meadows on the plains near the Gran Sasso. The area is not to be missed for nature fans.
• There is a large town market held each Saturday morning.
• Come experience Magna Teramo, a three day festival held in September that features the various specialty dishes of the city and surrounding area. Delisoso

Learn

Teramo hosts a renowned higher education facility, the University of Teramo, known for its colleges of law, veterinary medicine, and agriculture.

Buy

Ceramic goods in nearby Castelli.

Eat

The town is known for its culinary heritage which include:

• Spaghetti alla chitarra - pasta made with a stringed instrument device
• Mazzarelle. Lamb innards wrapped in lettuce. 
• Scrippelle 'mbuse - crepes in chicken broth
• Timballo - a layered, baked pasta dish that is similar to lasagna with crepes replacing noodles

Drink

• Vino cotto. "Cooked" wine, a dessert drink. 

Sleep

Budget

• Albergo Gran Sasso
• Casale in Valle San Giovanni. 
• Casetta Lucciola in Bascianella. 
• La Grande Quercia. 

Mid-range

• Agriturismo Fabiocchi. 

Stay safe

Not necessary to worry about this. Very little violent crime. Relax!

Go next

• Nearby towns of Frondarola, Valle San Giovanni, and Valle Soprana.
• The Shrine of Saint Gabriel is 1/2 hour away.
• Olive oil being manufactured in the suburb of Travazzano.