Church of Saint Mary of Carmel
THE CHURCH OF SAINT MARY OF CARMEL, formerly of Santa Maria del Soccorso, assumed its present design and name when it was restored and incorporated into the convent, founded by the Carmelite Order in Tricarico in 1605 through the legacies of the nobleman Gio. Pietro Russo. It is a rare testimony of the presence of the Carmelites in Basilicata, monks who, from the "Carmine Maggiore" in Naples, spread the cult of the Virgin of Carmel in the city of Tricarico, of which she is the patron saint. The church, with the entrance portal in stone with its inscribed stone entrance portal, has a single nave and is a treasure house of precious works of art, come out from the products of an organic iconographic project commissioned to Pietro Antonio Ferro by the same Carmelites. The artist realized there, in 1612, the year of appointment of the first prior of the convent in Tricarico, the artist completed there a cycle of frescoes of a visual impact remarkable for its extent and artistic quality, that represent scenes from Christ's and the Madonna's lives, portraits of Elias and Elisha, important prophets for the Carmelites and, above the vault of the apse, the Assumption and the Christian virtues. Above the main altar, the canvas of the "Madonna of Carmel", also the work by Ferro (1613), dominates. The canvases of the "Crucifixion with Saints", of the "Madonna and Child among St Anne, St Joseph and two Carmelite saints" and of the "Madonna appearing to St Simon Stock", once placed on the four side altars, are currently kept in the bishop's residence.
CHURCH
- Stone portal with the inscription "Dum fluet unda maris curretque per aetera Phoebus / vivet Carmeli candidus Ordo mihi. Anno Domini 1605". "F. Gio. Antonio Russo fundatore della chiesa et convento' Above the tympanum, "Ne miseris hoc opus erexit Maria"
- Epigraphs of 1679 (right) and 1637 (left)
- Statue of Our Lady of Sorrows - work of the priest Antonio Mazzarone (1920)
- Remains of stone altar (sec. XVII)
- "Madonna and Child among St Anne, St Joseph and two Carmelite saints" painting by an unknown author of the Neapolitan school (17th century) - removed
- Crucifixion" - painting by P. A. Ferro (1616) - removed
- "The Madonna appears to St Simon Stock" painting by G. G. Vita Diodati from Maratea (1763) - removed
- Coffered wooden ceiling commissioned by the Fraternity of Mount Carmel under the priorship of Rocco Mazzarone and painted in 1910 by brothers Gabriele and Michele Bottalico from Montescaglioso
- Statue of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (XVIII century)
- "Our Lady of Mount Carmel" - painting by P. A. Ferro (1613)
- Painted wooden tabernacle coming from the church of St Angel in Tricarico
- Carved wooden stalls of the former monks choir (beginning of the XIX century)
- Entrances to the sacristy, probably the church of Santa Maria del Soccorso
- Commemorative plaque of the consecration of the five new marble altars of the church - now removed - to replace the previous stone ones (1914)
