Collemaggio: the basilica put back after 2009

Santa Maria di Collemaggio was wrecked by the earthquake of April 6, 2009 and rebuilt by the state heritage office with Eni money, and its Holy Door still opens for one night a year, on August 28.

What happened on April 6, 2009

The earthquake struck at 3:32 am local time on April 6, 2009, moment magnitude 6.1, with the focus 8 km down and the epicenter 2 km southwest of the city on the Paganica fault. Collemaggio stands just outside the old walls and took the shock directly.

The transept and the crossing came down. What you walk into today is a building that was reassembled, not one that was patched.

A two-year worksite, and a prize

The restoration was designed and directed by the state heritage office for L'Aquila and the earthquake municipalities, with Sapienza in Rome, the Politecnico di Milano and the University of L'Aquila working on it and Eni paying under a sponsorship agreement signed in 2013. The site ran two years.

It won a European Heritage Award from Europa Nostra in the Conservation category, and it was the only Italian project honored in that edition.

The year the church reopened for worship is not stated in the sources we read, which say only that the award came two years after the reopening ceremony. This page therefore carries no reopening date.

The facade, the door, the tomb

The facade is built in local white and pink stone with a flat horizontal top, finished in the first half of the 15th century on a site started early in the 14th. It is the one part of the building that most people photograph and the one that explains the town: the same two stones are quarried nearby.

The Holy Door is on the left flank, named that way in the 15th century, with a lunette fresco by Antonio da Atri dated 1397¹. Inside lie the remains of Saint Peter Celestine, in a mausoleum carved by Girolamo da Vicenza in 1517¹.

One night a year, since 1294

The Perdonanza Celestiniana has been on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage since 2019, under reference 01276² and decision 14.COM 10.b.19. It descends from the Bull of Pardon issued by Celestine V in 1294¹, and the tradition has run without a break since.

The rite is fixed to the building: the Holy Door of Collemaggio is opened on the evening of August 28 and closed on the evening of August 29. Around it run the Corteo della Bolla with a cast of about 1,000² in costume, the lighting of the Fuoco del Morrone, and a walking route through 23 villages.

Dates for the festival week move. The UNESCO record gives August 23 to 29, the 2026 organizing committee gives August 23 to 30, and the full program is at Perdonanza Celestiniana.

No hours, no ticket, no booking

Nobody publishes opening hours for the basilica, and no admission price appears on the regional tourist board pages or the parish material we checked on September 3, 2026. It is a functioning church, so access follows services rather than a museum timetable.

Treat that as the plan: come in the morning, expect the door to be open outside liturgy, and do not build a tight schedule around it. The other half of L'Aquila's rebuilding is at the city page and in L'Aquila is still being rebuilt.

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