Park your car along the asfalt road near the footpath (coordinates via waypoint), or drive up to Avacelli and look for the footpath (#141) that goes down into the valley to the Sant Ansovino church. If you like, you can follow this trail all the way to Serra San Quirico.
At the time of placing the cache the church was being renovated, so sadly unaccessible and partly hidden from view. But that shouldn't stop you from hiking along the path through a secluded little green valley with many trees, small patches of grass and a few water streams.
The Church
The only decorative element of the facade is a processional cross with six balls, typical for the Templars. The oldest evidence of the existence of the church dates back to 1082, when it is mentioned in a document of Lombard origin at the nearby abbey of San Vittore sul Sentino. The properties of the heirs of the late Lombards settled in the area in the early 7th century extended across the mountain belt that forms the watershed between the valleys of the Sentino and Misa rivers, from Mount Murano to Arcevia , from Genga to Castiglioni. The church was supposedly founded by some of these land owners between the 10th and 11th centuries and dedicated to the holy bishop Ansovino, patron saint of the town of Camerino, whose diocese was and still is part of the parish. The dedication to this saint of Camerino was commissioned jointly by patrons and the local clergy of the city, in response, as well as to local devotional needs as the political needs. On the one hand the patrons founders intended to reconnect to their historical roots, represented by Camerino, expression of the ducal power of Spoleto in the area; and on the other hand, the bishop and clergy of the city intended to symbolically reaffirm their jurisdiction over this remote corner of their territory.
In the 12th century the patrons of the church ceded their rights to the abbey of S. Elena sull'Esino, also not coincidentally located on the border of the diocese of Camerino and the Duchy of Spoleto in the direction of Jesi. The reasons for the Lombard presence in an area today so marginal and also then so far from Spoleto, are to be found in the morphology and location of all this mountainous terrain, dominant dell'Esino access to the lower valley and the Valley of the Misa and then perfectly suited to the essentially military character of the first settlements of the people .
The archaeological evidence is not rare and the most full of character toponomastico tell us about a significant human presence in pre-Roman and Roman times, both in the low Sentino, around the abbey of San Vittore, both in the higher Misa area on both sides of the divide, just around the places that would be fortified settlements between high and late Middle Ages. In particular, the small valley of Fugiano, where stands the church of S. Ansovino , the name bacilica - today Beicerca attested in the eleventh century documents the existence of a more ancient place of worship dating back to the early days of Christianity (5th-6th century) or the period of the missions antiariane implemented to convert the Lombards (7th century) .
This particular building has many artistic aspects worthy of further exploration, and constitutes above all a historical testimony almost unique in the central Marche, in the heart of an area of great historical an natural. It really deserves to be validated and studied with precision.
