Church of Saint Mary in Mud

The church was therefore built on the ruins of a pagan building or temple adjacent to the vicus. The base of the church, actually, probably dates back to a late imperial building, of which the side walls in opus reticulatum are visible. A monastery was later built next to the church, managed by Benedictine monks who reclaimed and made fertile the locality, often flooded by the Tribbio stream, as clearly indicated by the toponym “in pantano” (“in mud”). Some documents show that the church was dependent on the monastery of Farfa, so it certainly had a notable political role in the Martana area. A curious aspect that one notices immediately upon arriving is that the church’s façade is not aligned with the modern road, but rather with the old Flaminian Way that flows further to the right; it is enriched by a pointed arch portal in alternating red and white ashlars and a simple rose window. The very sober interior is divided into three naves by mighty columns and capitals of various types; it still preserves fragments of medieval frescoes of the local school. You can admire cinerary urns, decorative Roman fragments and numerous inscriptions.
On leaving the church, it is worth taking a quick look at the 14th-century square tower with a crown of medieval arches, which dominates the valley.
If you look carefully at the outer wall of the former monastery, to the left of the church, you will notice, embedded in the wall face and somewhat eroded by time, a Roman funerary urn with a bas-relief depicting the Sacrifice of Iphigenia, an interesting iconography common at the time.