Convent and Church of St. Valentine

The original church of St. Valentine was inserted in the Luco Castle until the abandonment in 1100 and 1300.

The convent was given in 1574 by Abbot Commendatory Alessandro Farnese to the Conventual Friars. The church was enriched with altars decorated with baroque plaster, shaping the backdrop to the seventeenth century paintings.

The church was purchased by the parish of Poggio Mirteto in 1892.

The convent with the choir and the chapel, behind the church altar, were purchased in 1893 by the French religious of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit.

Only in 1952 Cardinal Adeodato Giovanni Piazza bought the former monastery, which became the first Villa of the Episcopal Seminary of Magliano Sabina and Sabine seminary at a later stage.

Currently, a part of the building is used as a house of the clergy for the reception of youth groups.

Among the members of the religious community there are two great names: St. Joseph of Cupertino and Brother Lorenzo Ganganelli, who became Pope with the name of Pope Clement XIV (1769-1774).

The belfry preserves one of the two bells survived the degradation. The bell of 1666 with a salamander in a bas-relief image of St. Anthony of Padua.

The main altarpiece represents Jesus on the Cross, the Virgin and St. John.

The oil painting is seemingly a work of Guido Reni ‘s school. In the chapels you can find two artwork by Vincenzo Manenti (1599-1673). The first one is dedicated to St. Philip Neri and the second to St. Anthony of Padua.

A canvas with oil representing St. Barbara in a landscape with the tower where she was imprisoned by her father, is the third chapel; the work is dated seventeenth century.

Following on the right, there are three chapels: the first dedicated to St. Francis, the second dedicated to the Immaculate Virgin and the third at St. Joseph of Cupertino.