SULMONA – Sunday 12 May will be the 30th edition of Chiese Aperte. The cultural heritage in the Convents, Monasteries, small chapels. In Sulmona, you can enter a private chapel of the 18th century Palazzo Corvi-Zazzara.
Lucky Flora Rizzo (Vice – National President of the Archeoclub of Italy – Open Churches Representative): “We will enter monasteries, convents and chapels which are also closed to the public. It is a cultural heritage spread across cities, towns and districts. We will have large and small churches, but also private chapels, all rich in a priceless artistic heritage that still manages to communicate to the human soul today. May 12th will be the thirtieth edition of Chiese Aperte throughout Italy to get to know this great lesser-known heritage. We aim to protect, enjoy, but also enhance the sites. For example in Pisa, the local branch of Archeoclub D’Italia will open the church of San Paolo a Ripa d’Arno to visitors”. The entire Open Churches calendar is on the website www.archeoclubitalia.org
“It is a cultural heritage spread across cities, towns and districts. We will have large and small churches, but also private chapels, all rich in a priceless artistic heritage that still manages to communicate to the human soul today. May 12th will be the thirtieth edition of Chiese Aperte throughout Italy to get to know this great lesser-known heritage. We aim to protect, enjoy, but also enhance the sites. For example in Pisa, the local branch of Archeoclub D’Italia will open the church of San Paolo a Ripa d’Arno to visitors. In Parghelia, a village of 1250 inhabitants, in Calabria, we will go to discover the Sanctuary of the Madonna di Porto Salvo. In Belpasso, Sicily, the headquarters will open to visitors the Church of Sant’Anna, dating back to 1800. The small church called “a Chiesa Chi Canni” by the people of the Sant’Anna neighborhood was closed for approximately 171 years. The church was remodeled several times, most recently in 2020-2022 the trussed roof with reeds was restored and some restorations were carried out inside and outside the church. In Cefalù we will have the church and convent of San Pasquale Baylon”. This was stated by Fortunata Flora Rizzo, National Vice President of Archeoclub D’Italia.
“In Sulmona, Abruzzo, the great opportunity to visit the private chapel of the 18th century Palazzo Corvi – Zazzara. The private chapel is located on the main floor of Palazzo Corvi-Zazzara – concluded Rizzo – which extends over a vast area of the historic center of Sulmona between Corso Ovidio, Vico del Vecchio, Vico dell’Arco and Via Roma. The current building, the result of subsequent buildings, is characterized by five units: the first, of sixteenth-seventeenth century origin, on Vico del Vecchio; the second – adjacent to the first and open on the same road axis – rebuilt in the second half of the 18th century, following the earthquake of 1706 (it is the portion of the building in which the chapel stands); the third, lower, rebuilt in the last century; the fourth, consisting of the monumental nineteenth-century building that overlooks Corso Ovidio and Via Roma. In the 1990s, the rooms on the main floor of the building underwent a careful restoration which allowed the recovery of much of the original eighteenth-century decoration, consisting of stucco, gilding and tempera paintings. Description: The chapel opens on the left into a small room with the vault decorated with a central gilded frame with pure gold leaves, which contains painted fragments perhaps with a mythological or allegorical theme; the interior of the chapel, very simple, has a stone altar, above which is a painting depicting Christ Carrying the Cross, while on the right there is a Madonna and on the other side a few uninterpretable pictorial remains”.
