The tragic earthquake in central Italy that lasted all summer in different waves, created a real disaster for the historical and artistic heritage of the affected areas, of course besides the distressing news for the population and for the victims. The earthquake zone is closely linked to the medieval Romanesque art that radiates throughout Europe thanks to St. Benedict, who was born in Norcia in the years of the barbarian invasions and of the decadence of the Western Roman Empire.

The Apennines incessantly trembles because of the Maiella, a mountain at the center of the Abruzzo region which is not part of the European plate but of the African one. The Benedictine early medieval art coincides largely with the area up to the Po valley. But if in Tuscany subsequent reinterpretation of styles have created new facades, reconstruction of more modern or advanced characters, in the area between Southern Umbria, Lazio and Abruzzo some Romanesque testimonies have remained intact, and with the passage of time vaguely started to seem almost metaphysical, thanks to the depopulation of those areas.

In Fontecchio, a tiny village at the foot of Mount Sirente, there is a perfect fountain in proportions and decoration, reminiscent of the most famous public fountains of Viterbo and Perugia: but in such a small environment, it stands out for conservation and homogeneity with the territory surrounding.

In Bominaco you can find the facility of an entire medieval castle with walls and a watchtower, but especially the Abbey of Santa Maria Assunta and the Oratory of San Pellegrino that are the intact testimony of what was an impressive and prestigious monastic Benedictine complex, built from the eighth century on the orders of Charlemagne. Another version of the origin of these churches tells about a pre-existing pagan temple dedicated to Venus, on whose ruins the monks began the construction of their abbey in the late tenth century. In any case, the frescoes on the walls of the oratory are a testimony more suggestive of Abruzzo religious decoration.

Not far from Bominaco, through Celano we arrive in Alba Fucens, ancient Roman city that still shows the wonderful church of San Pietro, founded in the twelfth century on the ruins of a pagan temple. The old cell was turned into a three-nave structure, reusing Roman columns taken from the ruins of the civil buildings of the city. On the front of the church a bell tower was added, on which stands a carved wooden portal, one of the very few examples from the thirteenth century in Abruzzo.

Throughout the area villages, abbeys, churches and palaces tell an unbroken line of connection between the deep Middle Ages and the present day, creating at times spectacular jumps in the past in places of charm and meditation that even the forces of nature seem not to be able to erase completely.