Impressions

    Through green spaces, from the mountains to the sea, you meet rocky buildings exuding an austere and timeless solemnity.
    The landscapes here are kept intact in a smooth and peaceful atmosphere, in which stands the monumental heritage.
    Working of art sprinkles the constructions with mysterious features of old faces carved in stone, forms at the turn of the nature and the ideogram, to express an ancestral continuity between man and his origin, by the manifestation of his interiority, stylized, twisted and deformed up to abstraction.
    Some structural elements become, at the same time, significant decorations, softening the edges, to create a chiaroscuro effect of flora and fauna, as a tangle of leafy and climbing limbs around trunks and branches, toward the light of grace.
    They are shoots of life, at the same time, human, animal and vegetal, expressing an universal whole, by means of which the building of the community supports itself and goes up skyward.
    By following some paths and streams, we find ourselves face to face with a luxuriant and religiously kept nature, so coming into contact with the involving spirituality of the Cistercian world, and again, going to the coast, you can enjoy breathtaking views.
    You remain in ecstatic contemplation, almost hoping that no time elapses, so you can let the senses slowly enveloped by every surrounding element, to keep them in a condition of perfect and unchanging harmony.
   

Ceramics Museum of Castelli

    The town of Castelli, in the province of Teramo, boasts an ancient and important tradition in ceramics, that was worked here by dynasties of masters, whose works are shown in the most prestigious museums of the world.
    The Ceramics Museum was established to house the Civic Collection of Majolica created by Gian Carlo Polidori in 1934, which includes the Colledoro Altarpiece (1615-16), many hollow flat tiles from the church of San Donato, known for its amazing tiled ceiling, and the ex-voto from the church of San Rocco.
    The seat is the Convent of Minor, architectural complex of the 17th century, with a beautiful cloister, consisting of 12 round arches, supported by eight stone columns and four corner pillars, and painted in the early 18th century with life stories of the Virgin .
    The exhibition space looks like a real course of art and study in the world of ceramics for 15 rooms distributed on two floors.
    On ground floor is the archaeological section and an interesting hand-crafted laboratory, that illustrates the various processing techniques, while on first floor the route runs along a chronological exposition describing the evolution of the splendid majolica of Castelli, up to nowadays.