The town of Servigliano in the Le Marche region of Italy is unusual for the region.  It is not built atop a hill with a commanding view of its surrounding domain.  Instead it lies on one of the few flat areas of this undulating landscape.

The old part of town is enclosed within a fortress of sorts.  Its high walls have small houses and shops built into them.  Once through one of the three gateways, you pass along cobbled streets and emerge into a large central piazza.  Three sides are taken up with the shops and houses of the external walls. The centre is a combination of marketplace and urban park with memorial statues.  The centrepiece of the piazza completing the fourth side is, inevitably, a church.

Visit the town on market day and you will probably be so focused on the stalls you will not look up at the church. But come here on any other day and you will notice a large white plaque on the front of the church.  The majority of the plaque is taken up with a vertic...