The Sanctuary of the Madonna del Carmine, also called for short ''Santuario del Carmine'' is a 19th-century

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

church located in the town of

Riccia ''Riccia'' is a genus of liverworts in the order Marchantiales. Description These plants are small and thalloid, i.e. not differentiated into root, stem and leaf. Depending on species, the thallus may be strap-shaped and about 0.5 to 4 m ...

Province of Campobasso The province of Campobasso (; ) is a Provinces of Italy, province in the Molise region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Campobasso. It covers an area of and has a total population of 223,871 (2017). There are 84 ''comuni'' (: ''comune'') in ...

in the region of Molise, Italy.

History

The

Carmelite order The Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (; abbreviated OCarm), known as the Carmelites or sometimes by synecdoche known simply as Carmel, is a mendicant order in the Catholic Church for both men and women. Histo ...

had established themselves in Riccia by 1238, and remained till this small convent was suppressed by

Pope Innocent X Pope Innocent X (6 May 1574 – 7 January 1655), born Giovanni Battista Pamphilj (or Pamphili), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 15 September 1644 to his death, in January 1655. Born in Rome of a family fro ...

in 1653. Medieval frescoes decorated the church that had existed at the site prior the present structure, however, it was rebuilt and refurbished over the centuries, eliminating the early decoration. By the early 1500s, it had become a site for devotion to the ''Vergine del Carmelo'' (

Our Lady of Mount Carmel Our Lady of Mount Carmel, or Virgin of Carmel, is a Roman Catholic Titles of Mary, title of the Blessed Virgin Mary venerated as patron saint, patroness of the Carmelites, Carmelite Order. The first Carmelites were Christian hermits living on M ...

). In 1863–1864, the ancient church was razed and rebuilt in an octagonal layout. An inscription on the portal recalls that the church was rebuilt in gratitude to the ebbing of the 1854

cholera Cholera () is an infection of the small intestine by some Strain (biology), strains of the Bacteria, bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea last ...

epidemic. The interior has a triptych depicting a ''Madonna and the prophets Elias and Eliseo''. Below are saints John the Baptist, Michael, and Albert. The church contains the statue of the ''Crowned Madonna of the Carmine and Child with Multiple Cherubs in Clouds'', which is paraded through town during festivities was replaced by a work of L. Caputo, after the original burned during a fire before 1903. Every mid-July, this statue of the Madonna is paraded through the street and brought back to the church. The church had two altars lateral to the main altar, one dedicated to Santa Filomena, the other to St Gregory.Riccia nella storia e nel folk-lore
by Berengario G. Amorosa, p. 174.

History

References

See also