Santa Maria dell'Assunta

Santa Maria dell'Assunta stands in Pastena, Italy, on a terrace reached by a stepped road. A medieval pointed arch supports the churchyard above the street. Across the southern side, a broad arch forms the entrance and opens into a trapezoidal atrium. Two portals lead onward from the atrium.

Built between the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, the church was first mentioned in 1319. Restoration in the eighteenth century introduced Baroque decoration. Later work removed those additions between 1955 and 1970, returning Romanesque and Gothic forms while replacing the timber roof with cross vaults. An earlier bell tower was rebuilt in 1847.

Inside, two naves divide into three bays, ending in semicircular apses beneath half-domes. Vietri majolica tiles form geometric patterns underfoot. Giovanni Angelo D'Amato's Assumption of Mary hangs in the right apse beside statues of the Madonna Assunta and Saint Sebastian Martyr from 1913. Across the street, the separate tower rises in two levels beneath a sea-green tiled pyramid.