| The convent of St. Mary Vetere, of the Franciscan Minor Observant, outside the city walls, to the south, probably goes back to 'the Swabian period (thirteenth century). The name derives from the fact that the church was built on an old (Vetus-veteris) chapel where a revered icon of the Madonna. The original Gothic structure was completely transformed in the fifteenth century, good offices of Francis II of the Dodge, while in the first half of the eighteenth-century church, a nave, was completely covered with stucco in baroque style. The convent, which is mentioned for the first time in a document dated 1438, was long home to the provincial ministers of the Order and it kept the archive. In 1656, during the terrible plague that struck the whole of Europe, was used as a hospital wing. The convent was spared by the laws of 1807 and 1809, since 1868 has become home for the elderly. Much of the interior of the church is due to the generosity of the noblewoman Anna De Salsedo (1583), was buried there. They remember the precious gilded organ of the eighteenth century, the main altar of Carrara marble, and the frescoes by the presbytery. There are many nobles of the city buried in this church. |