The Abbey of Sant’Elena is one of the oldest and most important abbey of Vallesina, in an area surrounded by green and gentle hills topped by ancient medieval villages, the Castelli di Jesi. Historians attribute the foundation of the first Benedictine abbey between 1005 and 1009 by San Romualdo, Monaco and missionary from Ravenna.
It presents itself as a Romanic-Gothic architecture from the mass tightened and fortified. The simple facade of the church, crowned by a bell gable, is focused on the entrance portal of the Romanesque style but with influences now gothic, Byzantine now. It is composed of four round arches concentric, resting on semi-columns and pilasters from capitals in bas-reliefs. The crypt is divided into seven naves, was rebuilt in 1925 in a simplified manner, on the basis of the few surviving traces. There are preserved the four beautiful capitals of the XI century.
In the old monastery are of the salt from the vaults in bricks, now barrel now spider, with stone walls. Among them the most ancient dates back to the XI century and has a barrel vaulted ceiling and floor to large slabs of stone. Apparently was the first settlement of the abbey.
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