Ex Monastero delle Clarisse

History

The Monastery of the Urbanist Poor Clares of Cerreto Sannita was founded by Francesca Sanframondi, widow of Pietro de Cadenet, collateral relative and chamberlain to Queen Joanna I of Naples. According to Nicola Rotondi Francesca was the daughter of Giovanni III, count of Cerreto from 1285 to 1319, while according to Dante Marocco she was sister of Giovanni and daughter of Leonardo Sanframondi.

On January 3, 1369 the apostolic letter of foundation of the monastery was issued, sent to the bishop of the time Monsignor Giacomo da Cerreto and which Rotondi translates as follows:

To the things, by which the increase of Divine Worship, and of Sacred Religion is procured, we willingly assent, and add the steadfastness of the apostolic firmament. The request submitted to Us on behalf of the beloved daughter in Christ, noble woman Francesca di Sanframondi, widow, of the diocese of Telese included, that she longing to change by felicitous commerce the earthly into the heavenly things, and the transitory into the eternal, of the goods bestowed upon her by God, for the salvation of her souls and those of her parents, and passed ones, she built and erected in the Castle of Cerreto of the said Diocese in a place from that, and honored, permitting the Bishop of the said place, a Monastery of the Order of St. Clare with the Church, bell tower, bell, and other needed facilities, in which ten Nuns of the Order of the said Saint are to live, to serve themselves in perpetual habit of the Religion the Lord of virtues in honor, and under the name of the Blessed Virgin Mary Mother of Christ, and has endowed it with so much, that from the fruits of the said endowment the said number of Nuns may be sustained with ease. In the name, therefore, of the said Francesca we were humbly entreated to deign by Apostolic benignity to give to such construction, and edification the Apostolic confirmation. We, therefore, who of the permission certainly have no news, commenting very much upon the aforesaid pious work of the said Woman in the Lord, bowing to such supplications, we enjoin, and command by Apostolic writing to your fraternity, of which in such, and other things have in the Lord special trust, that if you find permission, we will procure you to approve, and confirm by our authority such a construction, edification, and endowment, and other things to come from there, always with due regard for the right of the parish church, and of any other church. …

The lives of the Poor Clare nuns and their relationship with the society

Until the end of the 16th century, there are few documents that provide details about the life of the Poor Clares within their monastery and their relations with the outside world. In fact, after the first abbesses Caterina and Margherita Sanframondi and Rita d'Acquavia, there is no other news until the advent of Msgr. Savino, who in 1596 denounced the non-existence of a real archive in the bishop's curia due to the continuous wandering of the Telesine bishops, in search of a stable seat, found in Cerreto at the beginning of the 17th century. All that is known is that by a brief of July 21, 1465, Pope Paul II excommunicated anyone who held "tithes, revenues, proceeds, annual pensions, estates, houses, gardens, fields, vineyards, meadows, pastures, forests, woods, coins [...]" owned by the monastery. Pescitelli supposes that this deed arose as a result of a theft that occurred due to the rebellion of Giovanni Sanframondi, count of Cerreto Sannita, against the Aragonese and ended with his defeat and the advent of the new feudal lords of the Carafa house. Confirming this thesis is the fact that in 1525 the abbess Sister Chiara Cusano asked permission from Pope Clement VII to be able to sell a ground room and some chalices to subsidize the community's most urgent needs.

In the meantime, the monastery continued to grow, so much so that in a letter dated January 31, 1589, the Holy Congregation of Bishops set the maximum number of Poor Clares at twenty, decreeing further that the dowry of the nuns was to be paid in cash to be then invested in goods that would bear fruit each year. As an exception to these rules, the bishop could commute this payment, then consisting of a sum with a value between 100 and 200 ducats, into real estate. The dowries were then forfeited by the monastery to pay common expenses. …

Description

The Former Monastery of the Poor Clares, Istituto Leone XIII since 1930, is an imposing square-plan complex with a vast 1,500 sq. m. internal cloister and a large back garden. Of the original building intended to house the Poor Clare nuns, only a few cell exits on the facade facing Rome Square, the parlor and the "prison" remain, having undergone radical architectural transformations in the 20th century.

In the entrance hall is the funeral monument of the first abbess, Caterina Sanframondi, consisting of a bas-relief with her effigy and the coats of arms of the Angevins and Sanframondi, and a long inscription in Latin, added in 1846. To the left is access to the room where the wheel of outcasts was once located, which allowed the nuns to exchange artifacts with the outside world. The next room, on the other hand, is the parlor. Here the nuns would talk, through a grate, with relatives. The path the Poor Clares took to reach the parlor, behind the gratings, is of interest. Still intact, it consists of a long set of dark corridors, lit only at the end by a small doorway located high up in the wall. The "prison" cell, intended to house the disobedient nuns, is cramped and has no window or opening to the outside.

The refectory was housed in a vast room that today has become the seat of the meetings of the General Council of the Titerno Mountain Community, while under the current kitchen there is the granary and a series of tunnels that passing below the vast cloister joined the different wings of the complex. A high wall, on the other hand, surrounds the back garden where the nuns' burials are located and a building now abandoned where there are several tanks for washing clothes, a large oven and the ancient kitchen.

On the corner of Piazza Roma and Via Telesina, in the monastery block, is the "Old Forge," an old smith workshop.

The Church of the Poor Clares or Santa Maria Mater Christi, attached to the monastery, has a single hall with pronaos, side altars and dome. The exterior prior to recent restoration work was of exposed gray tuff.

In the interior, gilded wooden grilles from which the Poor Clare nuns listened to Mass are located on the cornices of the walls to the left and behind the high altar. The church's pronaos consists of a large room paved entirely in 18th-century ceramic tiles. …