Cingoli - Collegiate di Sant'Esuperanzio

Cingoli is known at least since Roman times, because around 60 BC the city was strongly fortified by Titus Labienus, one of Caesar's officers, who was born there. In the early Middle Ages, it was destroyed in the course of the battles between Eastern Rome and the Goths, later the Lombards. Probably between the late 4th and the second half of the 6th century, Cingoli became a bishopric and remained so until 1725.

The abbey of Fonte Avellana may have owned this spot already around 1000. The ownership was confirmed by the Pope in 1139.

From the second half of the 13th century, when Sant'Esuperanzio, the second bishop of Cingoli, was elected patron saint, the church took a prominent role. Thus began around 1250 the construction of the present church in Romanesque-Gothic style.

In 1569 the municipality was dissolved and with it the monastery of Sant'Asuperanzio. The church was used as a hospital during the plague epidemic of 1591. To disinfect the place it was customary to burn sulfur pools and then sprinkle quicklime on the walls to whiten them, so many of the murals got lost.

The devotion to Saint Esuperanzio received a new boost after the holy remains were found during renovation works in 1495. Today they are kept in a shrine in the crypt.