The Chiesa del Carmine, built by the Carmelites, was part of a complex, consisting of a convent with a small cloister and a garden, which became one of the driving centres of religious life in the city. The cult was dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The church, divided into three naves, preserves in the presbytery above the altar the painting of La Madonna che porge lo scapolare a Simone Stock, the only one signed and dated 1609 by Pietro Antonio Novelli, father of the more famous Pietro, also an Italian painter and architect, the most important and influential 17th-century artist in Sicily.
In 1866, following the law on the suppression of religious guilds, the administration of the Convent of the Carmine was dissolved and all the premises including the adjoining kitchen garden became state property and were used first as a prison and then as a hospital. In the early decades of the 20th century, the ruined convent was demolished, leaving the isolated church building. On Via Civiletti, the Carmine district flaunts its geometric form, the work of mastro Masi Oddo, the most skilled mason of the 16th century, and the will of the feudal lord, the Archbishop of the time. A country area outside the walls, in the 16th century it became a vast garden, home to the dignitaries of the Archbishop's Court. Antonio Veneziano, the greatest Sicilian poet, would go for walks to the Garden of the Court, a charming place for the eyes and soul, finding inspiration here for his poetry in Sicilian dialect and his poems in Latin. The Carmine residential area has the characteristic of the neighbourhoods that arose in the Baroque period, winding along mutually orthogonal street axes. Within these streets, several small gardens enclosed by houses or walls formed a single garden until the 16th century. Today we can still catch a glimpse of the last remaining vegetable garden, framed by an arched access, theOrto Mangano.
Credits: Arch. Paola La Scala
