Farnese Room

It is the first church within the city walls built perhaps in a former guard post next to the abbey palace. Consecrated in 1478, it was first dedicated to St. Mary of the Assumption, later the Church of the Holy Trinity; it is currently called the Farnese Hall and is owned by the municipality, which uses it as a multipurpose hall. Of the early church, the apse, wall traces of the side chapels and a few remnants of frescoes on the walls remain visible. The bell tower today The clock tower is the result of a transformation that has taken place over the centuries: originally created to defend the gate known as the “above” originally the crenellated tower is surrounded by two towers of which only the bases are visible today.

At the end of the 1500s with the construction of the new defense system, with its walls and gates, the tower is elevated, creating a space to house the bells of St. Paul’s church, and transformed into a clock tower. In said elevation, a single lancet window is created on each side to give visibility to the bells, bordered by a pair of brick pilasters; crowned by an elegant octagonal cap with lead covering. On the interior facades, two white marble quadrants of circular shape

The building appears to have been carved out of the premises used as a guardhouse at Porta Romana.

It was consecrated in 1478 and remodeled in 1588 , when Abbot Alessandro Farnese gave impetus to a major urban restructuring of the city. It ceased to be a parish church in 1790, when the new and current Cathedral was consecrated. It passed to the state property and then to the municipality. The exterior has simple stone structures, while the interior is now almost bare. Inside , on the wall where the apse used to be there is a municipal coat of arms in marble , the ceiling restored as it was originally with bricks painted white and light blue. A few fragments of frescoes and two crosses emerge. On the same side a fresco probably of the baptism of Jesus

The hall opens onto Garibaldi Square with the bishop’s palace with its medieval entrance and the town’s iconic clock tower.

The Antique Clock
is a unique, original machine. It is one of the few examples built entirely by hand made from forged and boiled iron worked with file and hacksaw. Its “chicken coop” shape built about between 1650/1680 is composed of three trains and cylinders: the movements, chime hours and quarters. The antique clock and its weight system will have to be cleaned up