S. Maria della Consolazione

The Church of Santa Maria della Consolazione lies isolated from the circle of walls.
The Greek cross temple is built around four high pillars linked to three slightly poligonal apses and one of them semicircular. In 1508 the building was begun probably on the basis of Bramante's design in order to preserve an ancient Majesty depicting the Holy Mother with Child and Saint Catherine from Alessandria. This image can be admired on the altar and other paintings from Andrea Polinori. This old fresco is supposed to have freed the town from the terrible winged snake which invaded the Tiber valley in 1457. It is said that a part of its body has been preserved behind the altar as an ex-voto to the Holy Mother. This image had been forgotten for years since when a bricklayer, blind in one eye, discovered it among wild bushes. According to the legend the man gained his sight drying his forehead with the handkerchief used to clean the image. The news of the prodigious event was the starting point for the decision to build first a small chapel, then the temple. Antonio da Sangallo, Baldassarre Perruzzi, Alessi, Vignola, and Ippolito Scalzi contributed to the building. Stones coming from the demolition of the Rocca were used to build the Temple, as well as stones of the medieval walls and of the Titignano caves.
A square terrace with four eagles on the corners is on the apse. It is surrounded by a balustrade from where the tambour of the dome is developed. There is a small cupola and an iron cross on it. The majestic statues of the Apostles , works of Scalza's School, are put in twelve niches in the first three apses. A big wooden statue of the Pope Martin I from Todi is in the east.