DESCRIPTION
The church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, also known as Church of the Botte (barrel) or of the Furlo, leans against the N.E. entrance of Vespasian’s Gallery overlooking the Candigliano River, with the entrance on the Flaminia Road. The church interrupts the first part of the Flaminia that passed through the “Little Gallery”. On the right and on the left there are two small rooms. The painting of the Madonna of Loreto, with the name of the patron as an ex voto, is standing on the altar.
MONTECCHINI (1879) describes it as a little church with small rooms, former dwelling of a hermit. LOCCHI (1934) says that the building does not preserve anything from its origin. FIORANI (2003) states that it was built at the end of the fifteenth century over the ruins of an existing building and that its name is a homage to the popular will of the travelers that implored or thanked the Virgin Mary for the safe crossing of the Gorge.
On the facade there is a plaque commemorating the gallery block in 1849 at the hands of the Roman Republic forces, commanded by Colonel Pianciani, to block Austrian troops moving towards the Capital.
http://www.lavalledelmetauro.it/contenuti/beni-storici-artistici/scheda/11184.html
