Andrea Delitio's frescoes and the badlands around the town
On a hill between the valleys of the Vomano and the Piomba, a few kilometres from the Adriatic, Atri is one of the most beautiful art towns of Abruzzo, one of the "Borghi più belli d'Italia". Of ancient origin, it was the Roman Hatria, which according to some gave its name to the Adriatic Sea, and in the Renaissance it was the capital of the duchy of the Acquaviva, a refined noble family who embellished it with palaces and churches. Its masterpiece is the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, a splendid Romanesque-Gothic church of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with a sober stone façade, a beautiful rose window and a tall bell tower, built on a Roman cistern, which can still be visited under the church.
Inside, the cathedral preserves the most important cycle of Renaissance frescoes in Abruzzo: the stories of the life of the Virgin and of Christ, painted in the apse in the second half of the fifteenth century by Andrea Delitio, a painter who combined the influences of Florentine art, of Piero della Francesca and of Flemish painting with a lively narrative style, rich in details of everyday life. The cathedral also houses a museum with works of art and a beautiful cloister. Around Atri stretches the Riserva Naturale dei Calanchi di Atri, an extraordinary landscape of badlands, steep clay ridges and gullies eroded by water, of a desert-like and almost lunar beauty, crossed by paths. Atri is also known for its liquorice and for the "pan ducale", a typical cake.
Tip: visit the cathedral with the cistern and Delitio's frescoes; walk the calanchi reserve paths at sunset.
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