Church of San Donato

The church is just outside the center of Castelli. It lies on a woody hill, and it is a national monument because of its ceramic ceiling. It was built during the fifteenth century, and was dedicated to Holy Mary. Its first ceramic ceiling was made by the Pompei workshop, and now it is kept inside the ceramic Museum. Between 1615 and 1617, a religious fraternity, composed by all the local artisans, made a new ceiling, the one that is still kept inside the church. The tiles composing the ceiling are decorated more with laic subjects than with religious images. The ceiling looks like a human portrait gallery, as it was tipical during sixteenth and seventeenth century. The most of the tiles is decorated with this kind of portraits, the remainig part is decorated with coats of arm, and naturalistic decorations, like animals, plants or flowers. There are also some tipical motives like the sun with snake shape rays, castels, fortresses. The ceiling of San Donato is such uncommon and special that a famous italian writer said it was ?the Sistin Chapel of Ceramics?.