Virgin and Child, St. John the Baptist and St. Celestine. The church continued to be embellished during the Middle Ages, impetus being provided by the canonization of St. Celestine in 1313 and the translation of his relics in 1327. The dome of Santa Maria di Collemaggio collapsed in the 1461 L'Aquila earthquake. A wall of the church collapsed in the earthquake that hit L'Aquila on April 6, 2009. In the first post-quake images of the area, the facade of the church still stands behind the restoration scaffolding. Cracks have appeared in some areas of the walls. The most severe damage to the basilica was the roof and dome collapse over the transept and part of the choir. The tomb of Pope Celestine was also damaged. Works for the restoration of the building were concluded in 2017 and since then the church is open to the public. Architecture The elegant Romanesque façade has the appearance of a wall, with a central door, embellished in the 15th century, and two smaller flanking doors; each door is a round arch set into a series of archivolts, and each is surmounted by a rose window. The main decoration of the façade, however, consists in the use of contrasting stone arranged in a sort of tapestry of cruciform elements. The façade lacks any of the customary crowning gables or other superstructures and may be unfinished. An octagonal belfry, reduced to a stub after it had to be demolished following an earthquake, gives the building an asymmetrical appearance. The three portals and three rose-windows are all different. The central door was significantly reworked in the 15th century, decorated with blank niches arranged in two rows over a base composed of square panels carved with floral motifs. A rear view of the church shows a congeries of various extensions over the centuries, mostly of the Gothic period. The interior follows the standard plan of a nave and two side aisles, each one divided from it by a row of columns, from which arches support a tall wooden ceiling. The floor of the nave is in the same red and white stone as the façade. A major restoration, aiming to return the church to its original Romanesque appearance by removing accretions over the centuries, was completed in 1972. This was the first time its furniture was actually refurbished. The church's principal monument, in the right aisle next to