MACERATA, DIOCESI di – Loggia del popolo or “dei Mercanti” (1504–1505). Designed by Cassiano del Fabriano.
Within the territory of the single parish is S. Maria di Fiastra, once the most important abbey in Italy after that of Farfa, founded by Guarnieri III, marquis of Ancona, and handed over by him to the Cistercians in 1141; the church remains, displaying pre-Romanesque stylistic features.
Pollenza (population 3,000, with three parishes); it is believed to have derived from the ancient city called Pollenzia by the Romans. After its destruction, before 1000, it was rebuilt through the efforts of a Frenchman named Milone, and was therefore called Monte Milone. It has a beautiful collegiate church, with notable works of art; the portal of the church of S. Antonio, dated 1377, is important. In the territory of Pollenza stands the ancient abbey of Rambona, founded in the ninth century by Ageltrude, daughter of Arechi, duke of Benevento, wife of Guido and mother of the emperor Lamberto. Of the ancient church, three apses and the crypt remain, of exceptional historical and archaeological importance; the latter, with three apses, is divided into five small naves by columns varying in material and form, with highly interesting capitals. The body of s. Amico, abbot, is preserved there. This abbey possessed the ivory diptych now in the Christian Museum in the Vatican, with the Crocifissione, the Vergine col Bambino, and various saints, dating from the time of the abbey’s foundation.