Chiesa dei Cappuccini

The church known as the Capuchin Church, also called S. Maria Fossa Dragone, is located within the municipal cemetery.

The church stands along the axis of the ancient Roman road Postumia on the Soave-Monteforte-San Bonifacio route. Of Romanesque construction, it takes its name from the convent of Capuchin friars that has now disappeared, who lived here from 1568 to 1769.

It was built in a poor Romanesque style in the first half of the 14th century and underwent several structural modifications in the following centuries. The first significant interventions on the church took place in the second half of the 15th century, which gave it its current appearance. The facade is simple, with a gabled roof and a Gothic door surmounted by a round window with chamfered edges; the south wall instead features a sundial. The interior presents a single nave that culminates with the triumphal arch leading to the apse.

The inner walls were frescoed mostly in a Byzantine style, and the portal was rebuilt with marble outlines. Of interest are the cycles of frescoes found on all the walls except for the one on the south; they date back to different periods, attributable to the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries.

This church housed the remarkable image of the "Madonna del Drago," a wooden sculpture from the 15th century, now preserved in the parish church.

The name Fossa Dragone seems to come from a local legend, according to which the Madonna freed the people from the presence of a dragon that terrorized them. For this reason, an image of the Blessed Virgin praying, holding a dragon under her feet, was carved in wood.

In reality, the dragon symbolizes a real fear, that of the overflows of the Alpone, a raging stream that has caused devastation in the past multiple times: a risk that still does not seem entirely averted today.