From the central piazza Italia to via Reggio Campi: history of the “transfers” of the monastery of Santa Maria della Visitazione between earthquakes and escapes in pursuit of peace.
The religious community “located in the center of the city, on a beautiful square, busy day and night, found itself exposed to a thousand inconveniences prejudicial to the nuns”.
Reggio Calabria, the story of the Monastery of the Visitation On 7 July 1753, in the area where the Prefecture is located today, in the central Piazza Italia, the ancient Palazzo Musitano became the seat of a new religious body following the communication with which Carlo Bozzi, governor of Reggio, made public the ordinance of Charles III of Bourbon, relating to the foundation of the monastery, «under the rules of San Francesco di Sales». The three Musitano sisters (Angela, Flavia and Virginia), who had matured the vocation to the contemplative life, were directed to the rules by Monsignor Stefano Morabito, later bishop of Bova, they received a gift from their parents the building that overlooked the ancient Largo New Year’s Eve.
A few years later, the monsignor’s two sisters (Anna Maria and Maria Giovanna) also joined, having purchased an adjacent building which was later used as an oratory. On 11 November 1754, having completed the adaptation works, Monsignor Morabito, by delegation from Archbishop Polou, blessed the premises of the new Monastery. In 1769 Morabito, now emeritus, was staying in the nearby Convent of the Dominicans and had the construction of the new church of the monastery begun at his own expense, calling «valenti Architetti di Messina» . Three years later, in 1772, the church was completed.
The earthquake of 5 February 1783 largely ruined the monastery, except for the church which remained intact.
The nuns were first forced to find accommodation in a house and then move to the barrack that had previously housed the Benedictine nuns of Santa Maria della Vittoria. In February 1790, Ferdinand IV, having received news of the hardship, ordered the reconstruction of the Monastery at the expense of the Cassa Sacra. The new urban chessboard layout had led to the fragmentation of the property cut by the new road route of Via Terme. The part owned by the block, known as the «island of San Giuseppe», was reunited through the construction of an underground passage. A “graceful cottage” was built in it. The nineteenth-century configuration of the Monastery can be read in the lower part of the painting of Maria Santissima della Consolazione (still kept by the Visitandine nuns) which was placed, in 1841, in the chapel built by Mother Barra. The building insisted on an almost trapezoidal urban lot with the oblique side towards Piazza dei Gigli. The structure, with the addition of the early nineteenth century, developed along the front of Via San Francesco di Sales. The reconstruction works had been supervised, with the title of “architect”, by the canon Felice Barilla. The architectural lines were dictated by the specific building typology of the convent to which the spaces for the boarders had been added. Two large doors opened on the sides of the eastern facade set in portals with classic stone columns that supported a curved tympanum. Four small windows with grates, resting on a thin sill marker, opened into the compact structure of the ground floor and in the center stood a plaque engraved with the indication “Sales”. On the upper floor there were six large square-shaped windows, enclosed in stone frames, also with grates.
Along the southern side front stood the uspidated terminal of the church bell tower on which, having relocated the original bell, dedicated to San Francesco, with the addition of a large bell (dedicated to Santa Maria), and a large mechanical clock donated by the Archbishop Tommasini, which came from the ancient Jesuit College and a small bell dedicated to St. Joseph donated by Monsignor Barilla. The necessary confidentiality, essential for a religious community devoted to enclosure, with the passing of the years was less. In fact, it «post in the center of the city, above a beautiful square, the busiest by day and by night, it was exposed to a thousand inconveniences that are very prejudicial to a Monastery…». On one side, there were the Offices of the Intendancy (where today there is the Palazzo della Provincia) and on the other there was «a noisy brewery, where the noises and curses were a continuous source of distractions and internal agitations» .
Already at the end of the 1850s the superior, Mother Maietti, started the procedures for a new headquarters. In the area of the Fornaci district, on land that was owned by Cortese and Dattola, facing the extension of the new Via Poxidenea, the engineer Giuseppe Costantino drew up the project at the end of 1860. The unification of the Italian State, the following year, also hindered the initiative for the promulgation of the law which provided for the confiscation of ecclesiastical property by the National Government. In 1871, in view of the construction of the new headquarters, a piece of land owned by Giuseppe Dattola was purchased upstream of via Reggio Campi, followed by the purchase of other lots by the Vilardi lords and, three years later, of another area, which was owned by Mrs. Eleonora Candeloro. Having obtained the permission of Archbishop Mariano Ricciardi, the nuns promoted an extraordinary collection of funds, despite government restrictions, which allowed, five years later (August 1, 1876), the laying of the first stone, «at the corner of the Mezzodì».
: From hospital to high school: the history of the headquarters of the “Leonardo da Vinci” in Reggio Calabria The new project “for the layout of the building to be built in Reggio Calabria owned by the Salesian Society of this city” drawn up by the engineer Francesco Paviglianiti whose architectural lines were inspired by Art Nouveau appeared to the nuns very audacious. On 4 March 1878, the Building Council approved a new «project for the installation of a building to be built in Reggio Calabria owned by the reverend canon Giuseppe Bosurgi», confessor of the Institute. After eight long years the Monastery was completed for the part of the Clausura and the Educandato. The church remained to be built, the works of which, based on a project by the engineer Rosario Pedace, were started by Archbishop Portanova on 20 February 1889. It was completed in 1903 but was short-lived because it did not resist the violent shocks of the earthquake of 28 December 1908
Source: The monastery of the Visitation in Reggio Calabria: history and anecdotes (avveniredicalabria.it)