The important Benedictine abbey of Santa Maria stands on a rocky hill dominated by the ancient castle of Bominaco, a fortress that controlled both the plateau to the northeast, crossed by the tratturo, and the valley of the Aterno River to the southwest. The monastic complex, of which only the church remains, appears to have been founded before 1000, but it was renovated in the 12th century, a time when a long dispute over control of the abbey flared up between the bishop of Valva and the Bominaco abbot, who did not intend to submit to diocesan authority. The church, restored with the removal of the Baroque additions, is a basilical plan with three naves, punctuated by monolithic columns of reuse and closed by as many apses; the sculptural decorations of the simple entrance portal and the apsidal single-lancet windows date back to the 12th century, a period to which the precious stone ambo with quadrangular case (dated 1180 – fig. right), the candelabrum for the Paschal candle, tortile on a styliphoric lion with a richly worked capital, and the abbey chair, located at the bottom of the central apse, made by Abbot John in 1184. Dated instead to 1223 is the valuable altar-ciborium complex, with a long dedicatory inscription recalling simultaneously Pope Honorius III, Emperor Frederick II and Abbot Berardo, who was its patron.
