Come spiegato in altre circostanze, i Saraceni sbarcarono a Bari di notte e approfittarono dell’oscurità per mettere a ferro e fuoco
Considerando il fatto che il Meridione è pieno di quadri di Madonne dipinte da San Luca o di Madonne di Costantinopoli non possiamo sapere con esattezza if the image stored above the high altar of the Convent of the Friars Minor is authentic.
Chances are, even about the fact that documents the persecution of the holy images, as attested by Isaurico Leo, Emperor of Byzantium in the year 726 and then forced our Valenziano or Valentinian to flee and settle in Bari
Origin of the Convent
built the church of San Rocco, the ancient church of Santa Maria di San Luca was abandoned and threatened to fall, when in May 1605 Baron Furietti Aurelio, who was co-owner to a third party, he asked the Chapter the sale next to found a monastery and invited the Carmelites, offering them a thousand ducats of silver. The Chapter agreed, but the deal with the Carmelites did not go through. The baron walked, then, negotiations with the Franciscans, but died in February 1606, before concluding, that in his will he left two thousand ducats for the rebuilding of the church and the construction of the monastery, the Franciscan fathers had always accepted the its proposal. Executors were his wife, Antonia Gentile, Pietro Bergamo Moiola the noble and others.
Negotiations with the Franciscans had a favorable outcome October 14, 1606 and University (now the Town Hall at the time) bought two allotments (3,780 square meters) around the church property of the Chapter, attended the signing to the Chapter, the priest Don Augustin de Rosa, the Primiceri Don Giovanni Todisco Lubesso cleric and Rocco Siciliano, Attorney Don Luca de Bellis and priests Don Domenico Azzopardi, Peter Paul and Pietrangelo Don Pedro Toma; for the university, the mayor and the elected Angelo Gilio Augustine Toma Dominic Coluccio, Cola Signorino, John Carlo Siciliano, for the feudal lord, the governor Dr. Giovanni Leonardo Raphael.
Then the Friars, who settled soon, represented by Raphael, purchase, provided the University with money, others square. 8420. The work started immediately, were followed by Moiola behalf of Furietti and, on behalf of the Franciscan community, a father from Stefano Ruvo († 1608), who was the first guardian of the friary.
front of the monastery was a large left atrium paved and walled, lifted from the road with just a few steps. Inside the church expanded four graves were dug, a family Furietti, one of two men and citizens.
The cloister, with two side gardens, was originally enclosed by four corridors, which opened in many workplaces. In the years 1750-1751 were frescoed walls of the cloister Conversi by John Capurso, son of Giambattista, a native of Matera, which in 1705 witnessed the discovery of the Madonna del Pozzo in 1726 and painted the cloister of Castellaneta. In the years 1772-1774 the tower was built, the work of the masters of Bari Coltella
Details of the church
From Via San Benedetto you log in Largo Plebiscito. Reference point is the bell tower of the church of Santa Maria di San Luca.
be noted on the outside, the facade of the Church ashlar regular, open from a window of the Baroque style, the bell tower in the elegant profile with onion terminal eighteenth century taste, but more sober lines of the bottom, perhaps in two stages, the Franciscan cloister with frescoes by the school and the Monument to the crags of the '700.
Inside the church, baroque style, is:
- a single nave, with elegant decorations in stucco and gold;
- a wooden choir of 1700;
- the high altar of carved wood and gilded with Franciscan symbol in the oval top and broken upper
- canvas with Anthony precious wooden altar in the chapel on the left side, of '600;
- a wooden crucifix of 400. It is carried in procession through the streets of the village to ward off famine and pestilence. The people believed and still believe in the miraculous power of that Cross, for which he has a special devotion. The old legend tells about it. The artist, having completed the work, pleased and satisfied as he gazed, he heard a voice saying: "You saw me in heaven on earth for making me so like?". True or not, the legend, it is nice to hear people say that, in its simplicity of faith, praying and weeping, went barefoot behind the procession, when raging more la peste o durava più a lungo la carestia. Erano tempi duri per tutti, quelli, come si vede;
- affresco di Gesù alla Colonna scoperto negli anni ’40;
- statua di Sant’Antonio da Padova e dipinto di San Francesco del pittore giovinazzese G. De Musso.
Lapide alla memoria del barone Aurelio Furietti
Nei primi di luglio dell’anno 1833 si pose sul frontespizio della Chiesa una lapide, ad opera di padre Giuseppe, superiore del Convento, per ricordare Aurelio Furietti che nel 1606 fondò il detto Convento. Ora questa lapide si trova all’entrata del Convento ripristinato:
* * *
D. O. M.
MORARE VIATOR
EN LAPIDEUM STEMMA FAMILLÆ FURIETTI
ÆQUE PERULLISTRIS AC PIENTISSIMÆ
INSCULPTUM USQUE AB AN O MDCVI
QUO
RECOLENDÆ MEMORIÆ AURELIUS FURIETTI
PATRICIUS BERGOMAS VALENZANI PRINCEPS
COENOBIUM HOC
ÆRE SUO FUNDAVIT EXTRUXIT ORNAVIT
UT[I]QUE
VOLVENTIBUS SÆCULIS INCOLUME SERVETUR
ANTEACTA INDULGENTIA POSTHABITA
[FRATER?] IOSEPH M A VALENZANENSIS
HUIUSMET COENOBII SUPERIOR
CUM MONACHIS SUIS
ET CONTERRANEIS COHORTANTIBUS
IN grateful mind
SPECIMEN IN HOC LOCO PONENDUM FECIT
OR AN S TIS MDCCCXXXIII TERT S NOT S IULIAS 348
* Translation: A
God Optimus Maximus . Stop, traveler! Here is the coat of arms [refers to the emblem above the inscription] Furietti family, illustrious and very religious, carved in stone since the year 1606. To revive the memory Furietti Aurelio, a nobleman of Bergamo, Prince of Valenzano, founded this monastery built and adorned at his own expense. In order to be preserved over the centuries, putting aside the past neglect, [Brother?] By Giuseppe Maria Valenzano, more of the same monastery with the monks and exhortation of fellow citizens, put it in this place such a grateful heart. Year of salvation 1833, three days before None of July [July 5].
suppression of the convent of Friars Minor and the Monastery of the Cistercian
On March 17, 1861 Victor Emmanuel II was proclaimed king of Italy. On July 7, 1886, shortly after the proclamation of the Kingdom, the two monasteries were suppressed and the Franciscan monks of the Cistercian Sisters of the Church of Our Lady of Loreto. The Convent and the Monastery passed, therefore, the State and in 1870 were assigned to the Community of Valencia.
On November 26, 1886, the Community of Valencia moved his seat in the structure of the former convent of the Sisters.
The Franciscans left the church and left the convent, some of the cells of the convent building was renovated, transformed and adapted to classrooms for primary schools, which was reached by a flight of several stone steps, while the ' On the other hand was occupied the seat of the beam until July 25, 1943, after the same had been used to house the Police Station into service in Valenzano (Praise the Corps then trasferì prima in Via Bari n.78 e poi nell’attuale sede di Via Piave).
I Frati Francescani lasciarono la chiesa e abbandonarono il convento. Il culto diminuì considerevolmente e pochi erano i fedeli che frequentavano la chiesa sprovvista di religiosi.
Prestò servizio in qualità di sacrestano il sig. De Vivo Luigi Benedetto dal 1927 al 1946, fino al ritorno dei Frati Francescani, e rimase fino al 1985, anno in cui decedette. Successivamente subentrò il figlio De Vivo Nicola, che prima aveva collaborato con il padre.
La chiesa era abbandonata, dal 1927 al 1946 celebrava la messa solo la domenica Don Michele Lucente, Arciprete della chiesa di San Rocco; succedette poi il sacerdote Don Vito Miolla, aka Gigiuich "until they became disabled, he left the service because it was transported in a wheelchair.
Return of the Franciscans in Valenzano
Gone are the dark days of the fascist and monarchist, and the new administration took office in Valenzano, such a Father Brandonisio True, true Franciscan, with his irrepressible and spiritual youth, took care of the church to ask and get the sale (with a resolution of 4/4/1946, which granted free use of the Convent the Franciscan Friars Minor for 29 years), in favor of the Religious Community Franciscan convent. The latter undertook to repair the bell tower, made it unsafe for a lightning strike, and to make the various habitable environments, battered by the presence of allied troops during the last phase of the war.
The Parish Church was canonically erected in October 1949 and the Decree of the President of the Republic for the civil recognition came on 17/05/1952. With deliberation
n.51 of 01/12/1952, approved by the Provincial Administration in the session of '08/01/1953, the City granted for 22 years, the Franciscan Sisters of Malta, the last wing of the Convent run the asylum. The sisters were engaged in exchange for assisting poor children free of charge at the rate of 1 / 3 of all students attending, however, the extent of not less than 25 children.
The Friars Minor remember the following phrases carved on marble slab, at the foot of the tank of the cloister in 1996, eighty years after their return to Valenzano:
"
THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE RETURN OF FRIARS MINOR A
VALENZANO
THE FRATERNITY 'FRANCISCAN
REMEMBER ALL THE CHILDREN OF FRANCIS OF ASSISI
THAT FROM October 2, 1946
WITH HUMILITY COURAGE' AND DEDICATION
EFFORTS TO
the progress of civil, moral and religious
WHAT OPERATORS OF JUSTICE, PEACE AND WELL AND HOPES THAT
VALENZANO
RETAINS MEMORY ALIVE, RIGHT AND PERENNIAL
of the Franciscan tradition "
October 2, 1996
- Domenico Luisi, Origins, events and figures of Valenzano, 2007
