Today, 4 October, celebrates Saint Francis of Assisi, patron of Italy. The Valley of the Abbeys still preserves valuable architectural and documentary evidence that narrate the early years of the spread of the Franciscan message. Next to settlements that clearly show their Franciscan face, there are others that have only a few traces; others are now totally disappeared, to make room for new buildings, or are simply abandoned.
A Morro d’Oro, we find the Church of Sant'Antonio Abate (already of St. Francis). In Provincial Vetustissimum (1334-1344) Morro d'Oro is among the Franciscans of the Custody settlements Aprutina.
The premises of the monastery, of which only three cross-vaulted arms, They were completed probably in the seventeenth century but, abandoned following the Napoleonic suppression, already in the nineteenth century they had been converted and are intended for agricultural use.
Of the church, a single hall covered roof, It survives only front on which the fourteenth century portal opens, similar in type to that of Teramo and Campli, which now leads into a converted chapel from the entrance of the original church.
Diametrically opposed to the church is still visible a characteristic dovecote tower. 
A Cellino Attanasio, in the village center, is the Church of the Convent of St. Anthony Abbot. Documentary sources do not clarify the edification time of the Franciscan church, today it dedicated to S. Antonio, essa era sicuramente già realizza
ta nel XIII secolo, by a bull because it retains the 1 April 1347, with which Pope Clement VI authorizes the friars to build a new convent and the abandonment of the old complex, now in ruins.
Despite having undergone several changes over the centuries, the last one after World War II, the church still insists on the original perimeter; the part that most preserves its medieval structure coincides with the presbytery, made outside of blocks of stone reinforced by buttresses, while inside it is intact in the choir coverage sometimes ribbed cruise, which opens onto the nave through a pointed arch. the convent, completed in the seventeenth century, It preserves the cloister defined on four sides by round arches with brick and nuts, center, the characteristic well.
Finally in Isola del Gran Sasso, the tradition, received by various authors, it that a monastery was founded by St. Francis, arrived in these lands between 1215 and the following year to pacify some noble families at odds for border issues. It seems that on the disputed border was built a small Franciscan headquarters, renovated and enlarged in the sixteenth century by the Conventual; at this stage it dates from the church portal, now it rebuilt in the cloister. The monastery has suffered many vicissitudes, including four deletions: by Pope Innocent X (1652), Joseph Bonaparte (1809) and the Kingdom of Italy (1866 and 1882). Finally reopened in 1894, Today is the destination of a busy pilgrimage because it keeps the mortal remains of St. Gabriel, patron saint of Abruzzo.
To arrange a visit, please contact one of the accredited or write to ITHACA – segreteria@associazioneitaca.org.
(Fonti: Region Abruzzo; www.paesiteramani.it for photos of Francesco Moscow on Morro d'Oro and Cellino Attanasio,it).