Santa Maria delle Donne e le Clarisse ad Ascoli: un contributo per l'architettura francescana di destinazione femminile

The church of Santa Maria delle Donne in Ascoli Piceno, founded around 1232, is one of the oldest Franciscan convents in Provincia Marchiae Anconitanae and has a raised presbytery which, although containing a Gothic ciborium, has often been regarded as the nun's choir. The author excludes this theory, since the Poor Clares observed strict clausura and, basing himself on architectural traces on the exterior of the church and on a bricked-in window and door, proposes that the choir was in an adjacent structure, since destroyed, and later behind the facade wall.