The church of Santa Maria della Salute is located outside the city walls along the ancient Via di Valle Piatta in Viterbo where women of malfeasance used to be.
It was built in 1318 by the Master Fardo of Ugolino di Uffreduccio, a Franciscan notary and third order.
It was the chapel of a refreshment point for prostitutes who sought to redeem themselves.
But the Master did not succeed in his intent and in 1324 he left Viterbo to retreat to the Cimini Mountains.
The church was the object of criticism among the citizens for its magnificence, so much so that Pope Martin V Colonna decided to entrust the church to the attorneys, solicitors and notaries.
Today it belongs to the Viterbo Bar Association.
The church has a very unusual style for Viterbo, a two-coloured flat façade with square slabs of white and pink marble placed both horizontally and obliquely.
The entrance door has one of the most elegant and refined marble decorations of Viterbo. A series of columns with coloured marble and a frieze carved with two vine branches that intertwine and enclose human figures that represent mercy.
To a flat facade, then, contrasts a round rear, where there is an elegant and large mullioned window, so that the church seems to have the shape of a heart.
While on a lateral external wall there is a news-stand in the form of a mullioned window that protects a fresco of an Annunciation.
The interior is very simple and houses the tomb of Maestro Fardo who wanted to build it many centuries ago.
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