Discovering Gissi

Gissi, in the province of Chieti. There are several important stages to pay attention to: the church of Santa Lucia, built as early as 1496, is surrounded by a small pine forest located on a hill from the top of which it is possible to admire the panorama of the surrounding area. The original church was demolished and then rebuilt in the 19th century and completed in 1902. During the excavations, tombs and other objects were exhumed in the foundations. The facade, with nineteenth-century characters, has a gabled profile, in axis with the portal there is a single lancet window and the oculus of the tympanum. The church has a hall layout with a single nave and has Corinthian order pilasters. Another important stop is the church of Santa Maria Assunta: it is the parish church and, most likely, it stands on an already existing country church, probably dating back to the 4th or 7th century. It was built in 1568 and in the 18th century it was enlarged. Initially it consisted of a single elongated hall, the facade was made of stone and in the 1950s it was modified with red bricks, together with the door and the three rose windows; next to it we find the bell tower about 30 meters high, dating back to the eighteenth century and was renovated between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The interior of the church has a central nave and two side aisles with three spans, where 8 chapels are placed, 4 on each side. The historic center developed in the medieval period and is located around the centers of power of the past: the church and the castle. The latter was probably founded in the Lombard period and of which there is nothing left, perhaps due to a landslide. The historic center, consisting of the houses close to the church, is surrounded by a wall; in 1600, during a strong economic and social development, the houses were also built outside the walls, not to be confused with the wall, built in the Fascist era.