Female Churches and Convents

SANTA MARIA DELLA PURITA’ CHURCH IN THE AUGUSTINIAN CONVENT

On the 16th of june 1653 Monsignor Tommaso Caracciolo, following the instructions given by Pope Innocenzo X, eliminated San Filippo and San Giacomo franciscan convent and he assigned its incomes to the foundation of a feminine cloister consecrated to Santa Maria della Purità. This monastic complex was founded on a land that was part of an original Lombard farmhouse dated back to the VIII-IX cent. In that place there was an ancient chapel consecrated to San Nicola dell’Appennino.The cloister, that was inspired by the rule of S.Augustine, is also called The Big Nuns’cloister, to distinguish it from the one of the Monacelle (or little nuns) Academy of music. The main difference between the two feminine monastic orders was their wealth.The Big Nuns’ cloister, in fact, accomodated people belonging to the well-off families of Martina. The claustral rule austerity is implicitly shown by a solid conctruction with very high walls. However, there also is a baroque touch on the terrace label. The whole building is surrounded by a fretworked balustrade with big torches and angel statues that are like guardians of the nuns ascetic and mystic life.

Above, the belvedere with its sinuous shapes stands out and it can be compared to Sant’Andrea delle Fratte (a.1654) belfry, a work by Borromini. The complex turns around a cloister with an octagonal well in the middle.The little church has a rococo style and it is the only one in Martina Franca. The interior is richly adorned by polychrome marbles, cartouches and volutes made of stucco and by golden fittings. Inside there is only one nave divided in four bays that are held by strong arcades. In this church you can also observe some works of two famous painters of Martina from the XVIII century: Domenico Carella and Paolo De Matteis. There is a wood choir over the entrance screen of the church . The wood panels of the choir are orned with floreal, exotic and mythological motives.Those motives are very similar to the ones on the interior doors of the Ducal Palace.
The entrance of the chapel has fluted columns at the sides of the portal and on top of them there are two caryatids that are an exaple of a monumental sculpture. At the moment, in the convent live Maria Ausiliatrice’s Daughters.

SANTA MARIA DELLA MISERICORDIA CHURCH, AT THE CARACCIOLO DE SANGRO FOUNDATION

This monastic complex was built in 1725 for the will of Aurelia Imperiali,as it is written over an inscription on the left side of the little church. She was the widow of the Duke Petracone V Caracciolo in 1725 and of Isabella Avalos. Her aim was to give shelter to poor girls and orphans that accepted to don the religious habit and the Augustinian rule.This convent , so, mainly took in girls belonging to poor families and girls that “had made a mistake”.Those girls after some time could also decide to leave the convent and get married; in that case they even got a little dowry. In the convent the girls were introduced and trained to houseworks, such as needlework, confectionery, tailoring and so on. The complex was built putting together many different buildings of which the biggest one belonged to the Turnone family. That is why this convent is not a typical one, with a central cloister and the construction around it, like the Augustinian one. The entrance of the convent, in a late- Renaissance ashlar-work, is like hidden in a blind lane and it can be compared to a common civil building.

You get in through a hall, that takes the place of the cloister in the monastic structure.In the upper part you can see a belvedere sheltered by a typical bulged gate and a fretworked stone balustrade, whose decorations remind an “esoteric symbolism”. The “Madonna della Misericordia”chapel has an independent entrance. Inside the little church you can see two stately baroque altars. On the left, above, there are two choir with bulged gates for the secluted nuns. In this church, in a silver frame, there is an image of the Volto Santo (Saint Face). At the moment, this place is the seat of “Paolo Grassi” Foundation.

Anna Marangi

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