Is this how you would imagine what the gate to the netherworld would look like? Well, this is it
For at least 2500 years, it has been a place of prayer and you just need to look around to understand why
Spontaneous subsidence of land and other phenomena made this the site of gods
Already worshipped in ancient times then by romans and recently by catholics.
This is one of the most fascinating yet mysterious cult sites in all of italy
This man-made structure re-conquered by nature is submerged today and sinking deeper into the ground year a year
But for us it was just another unexpected roadside find
On our road trip this summer. We explored this place which is most likely the oldest abandoned building we've ever discovered
What has happened? an act of god or the force of nature?
Follow us in this video when we enter the ancient temple and try to uncover its secrets
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This former house of god lies in ruins today
There is no roof anymore and it has sunken into the ground
Only the monumental limestone facade is still in place
The structure turned into a habitat for new life
And the reason why nature is flourishing here is not only the absence of man
But also a spring that emerged right under the building centuries ago
And later caused its downfall, literally
This is an area of marshy wetlands
Due to the number of mineral springs and phenomena like spontaneous subsidence of land
people from the ancient world were already coming here to pray
They thought this must be a portal to the netherworld
Later, romans built a temple where the church is located today
The lord's house itself was constructed in the 14th century and quickly became the most important religious institution of the valley
150 years ago it needed to be abandoned
The surreal character of this place not only inspired travellers and adventurers from all around the globe but also filmmakers
We found a movie that was shot here in the 80s
And if you see the footage you could think that the spring has almost dried up today
In all the older photos and videos the church was on the water and the stream ran through the entrance portal
to flood the surrounding landscape
Somehow this stopped a while back, but thanks to that nature could take over entirely
Please understand that we can share information like the name of this movie or the location of the church in order to protect it
We don't want to turn it into another instagrammable place that gets overrun
If you are interested in high resolution images of our explorations
You can support us on patreon where you can get our Urbex wallpapers as a digital download
You can also order our Urbex calendar for 2021 soon. Stay tuned!
It appears like this is still a sacred place today
Locals have built a shrine at the exterior wall since praying inside is not possible anymore
In the 19th century a sinkhole opened up and flooded the church. Just imagine that!
This probably happened as a consequence of one of the many earthquakes in this region
Since the building was not safe anymore. It needed to be abandoned by the community
it took a whole century of neglect and another devastating earthquake to make the roof fall down in the 1970s
there has never been a real intervention to preserve the building
Even though the site has been sacred for thousands of years already and people think the water must have miraculous healing powers
The building itself is deserted and slowly sinking deeper into the ground
Man left but nature arrived and the site of gods literally became a nether world
For us it's now time to move on.
Initially, we had another destination planned and we just stopped here for the night
The whole region of central italy is scarred by harrowing earthquakes and you can still find damages in many of the cities
Only a decade ago, there was a quake that went down in history and in our next episode we'll explore its aftermath
We not only found one house that needed to be abandoned or just two of them
or three
or four
or five
In fact, we found a whole medieval town that is eerily empty today
Yes, every single building you can see here is abandoned
And all belongings were left behind
Well, let us get to it. There's a lot of film to discover and to research
And we'll present all of it in chapter 5 of our 2020 italy series
What did you like the most about today's roadside find?
It's more mysterious than any other ruin we've found before
To shorten the waiting time for the next video
We post on social media every other day. And if you want you can support our project on patreon until next time and keep exploring!