The abbey of San Mauro sits on a rocky outcrop 70m above sea level that drops right down to the sea and is known as Serra dell’Altolido.
The Basilian abbey of San Mauro dates back to the 10th-11th century, and the abbey is first mentioned in May 1149 on a text written on parchment in Greek. All that remains of the ancient abbey is the church of San Mauro, a building of modest size built entirely from square calcarenite blocks of rock (tuff).
It has a simple façade with two sloping roofs crowned by a small belfry. The entrance is in a crescent-shaped arch above, which there is a splayed window. The interior, rectangular in shape (10.70m long and 6.30m wide), is made up of three naves supported by six quadrangular pillars. The pillars have no capitals but sit under a simple frame that constitutes the bases of the sharply-rounded arches. The central nave has a deep barrel-vaulted ceiling, and the side naves sit under semi-barrel-vaulted ceilings. The building is covered entirely in frescoes from the Medieval period.
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