Convento del Carmine

Calabria also offers suggestive places such as the Chiesa del Carmine. Too bad it is almost always closed to open to make opportunities.

The Church of the Carmine is connected to the convent dating back to 1562. The founder was Father Angelo Emiliano of the order of Carmelitani Calzati who had it built after having obtained the land from the baron of Belmonte Tiberio di Tarsia, VII and last Baron of Belmonte, and from his wife Ippolita Carafa. The Church was then enlarged and improved by the Ravaschieri who succeeded the Di Tarsia in the lordship of Belmonte and was chosen to house their tombs. On the majestic seventeenth-century portal, rich in low-reliefs, in tuff, the work of local stonecutters, from the early Baroque period, there is a white marble plaque with the following inscription: trad "Orazio Giovan Battista Ravaschieri, of the counts Fieschi di Lavagna, prince of Belmonte, endowed and adorned this precluded temple, built by its predecessors, to the Virgin Mother of God". On the sides of the tombstone two coats of arms in white marble, one of the Fieschi and the other of the Ravaschieri. Below, hollowed out in the lintel, there was a couplet, now illegible, which said: "You who are looking, it was the diligent care of the Count of Lavagna to raise the temple of Maria del Carmelo". From these inscriptions it is clear that Turin Ravaschieri, in 1583, restored the church founded with the convent by elevating it. In the church, under the apse floor, a crypt dating back to 1586, the year of Turin's death, houses the tomb of Turin and the first Ravaschieri. At the foot of the steps leading to the apse, in the central part, there is the entrance which leads to the crypt. It was also accessed from behind the altar, for the exclusive use of the friars. In the crypt, in the center of the floor, there is a trap door, which covers the ossuary. All around there are stone seats for the monks, who periodically recited their prayers there. On the main altar of the church, there is an icon of the Madonna del Carmine, a copy of a Romanesque Madonna. Inside the entrance door there are two green Belmonte marble stoups, in the shape of a shell, both surmounted by a double-headed eagle, dating back to the first half of the 1700s and probably affixed by Prince Antonio Pignatelli. The Carmelites owned many lands, such as u cuascu di Monaci, a grada di Monaci, the Abbey and other properties owned by private individuals for bequests and given by the friars to be cultivated in emphyteusis to peasant families. The Ravaschieri instituted, as was customary at that time, a dowry to be given to married girls, to be delivered on July 16, the day of the Madonna del Carmine. The convent was equipped with a very rich library. In fact, education was entrusted not only to some private scholar, but also to the convent. Pushed by the will of the people, the Napoleonic government thought of establishing a primary public school. The suppression of the convent, which took place following the establishment of article 32 of the decree of Joachim Murat, 7 August 1809, the assets belonging to the Carmelite Calzanti convent of Belmonte were confiscated by the State, and the priests expelled. In the church the corpses were buried until 1842, the year in which it was built and the municipal cemetery came into operation. In 1829, with a contract, the Administrative Commission gave Mr. Del Giudice Bonaventura, in perpetual emphyteusis, the Church and the former convent of the Carmine, upon payment of an annual fee.