San Claudio al Chienti

San Claudio al Chienti is a Romanesque church in the territory of Corridonia, in the Marche region of central Italy, standing in the valley of the Chienti near the site of the Roman town of Pausulae. It is one of a small group of churches in the Marche built on a cross-in-square plan with four central supports, together with San Vittore alle Chiuse near Genga, Santa Croce dei Conti at Sassoferrato and Santa Maria delle Moje near Jesi. Its most unusual feature is that it consists of two superimposed churches of identical plan, a type known in German scholarship as a Doppelkapelle. The lower church served the surrounding rural community as a pieve, while the upper church was the private chapel of the bishop of Fermo, who had a residence alongside. Despite its popular name of "abbey", no monastic community is documented on the site. The building was declared a national monument in 1902.