The Church of Santa Maria in Araceli is a Baroque church in Vicenza, located in Piazza Araceli, in the eastern part of the Querini Park. SHORT HISTORY The first information about a small church dedicated to Santa Maria dates back to 1214, near which, in 1244, the community of Sancta Maria Mater Domini of Longare bought a piece of land and built a modest monastery. In 1277, the monastery passed to the Clarisse nuns of San Francesco. In the 15th century, the monastery was in a state of serious decline, due both to economic reasons and to the isolation in which it found itself after the construction of the Scaliger walls. The ancient Church of Santa Maria was demolished in 1675 and rebuilt in Baroque style by the architect Guarino Guarini. The works were completed in 1680, but the consecration of the church took place only on November 17, 1743, by the bishop of Vicenza, Antonio Maria Priuli. In 1797, the nuns were expelled by the French army, which used the rooms to house the troops. They returned there in 1799, but were definitively removed from the property in 1810, by virtue of the Napoleonic law of suppression of Read more [...]