Loreto Square

In a strategic location, perched and impregnable from Criptula area (starting from the today so called Via Grottuccia – Lit: small cave) gave access to the ancient castle of Toffia and Loreto Square was its heart, in fact in the Gregorian Cadastre of 1819 was still called Square Castle.

On the square stands the simple and beautiful facade of the Church of Our Lady of Loreto or Santa Maria in Criptula that until 1507 served as a parish, with travertine portal with a lintel that says Sub Solo the Lateran, because for certain time it was subject to the chapter of St. John Lateran.

In the tiny belfry, it hangs a bell of 1300.

At the top of the stairs, on the other side of the square, the deconsecrated church of St. Bernardino, now a theater – mentioned in the pastoral visits of 1616 and 1683 “… under the protectorate of the Society of the Gonfalone (Banner), who lives on alms .. . “- inside with a great fifteenth-century fresco depicting the Virgin and the Child, St. Bernardino and St. Sebastian.

On one corner in the square, right next to the entrance of Montecavallo Str. the so-called Marble of Square, a large oval stone from the Roman era coming perhaps from a tomb along the Salaria, which brings engraved on the surface a chess board and a thread, a typical game of Roman military during on-call shifts. It is traditionally reported that the stone was used as a table where inhabitants made business, testing the quality of the coin on its surface because of its good sound.

Even the base – Romanesque style – is peculiar, but regarding on these stones we can nowadays just hypothesize a relationship on the basis a testimony received in an act of 1681 which states that “… a side of the episcopal chair from the Church of St. Lawrence is found a place for seater in Piazzetta Way, with other involved stones … “.

Finally, the view ranges from the square to the mountain, which was sold together with the palace by Orsini Family to Toffia Community, ” with the right to the people to make free wood”.