Chiesa di Santa Maria delle Grazie

The Chiesa di Santa Maria delle Grazie began as a modest single-nave hall, but successive restorations have transformed it into a three-aisled church on a square plan. Its masonry walls are rendered in plaster, and the roof pitches differ in height, hinting at the building’s layered construction history. The façade, originally a simple gabled front, is now concealed by an attic storey set above a later portico. At the centre of this porch, a small niche holds a statue, while above, in line with the portal and lunette window, a little bell-gable houses a single bell. It is a church that wears its alterations plainly, a quiet accretion of centuries rather than a single, confident design. The result is less a statement of architectural purity than a patient, palimpsest-like structure, where each addition seems to have been made with a practical, unshowy deference to what came before.

Description via source. Coordinates and heritage data from the Atika atlas.