Carmine Church: the Main Character of Holy Week in Taranto

 

It stands out right in the middle of one of the main streets of the centre of Taranto and is the main character of the Rites of Holy Week of Taranto. It’s Maria Santissima del Monte Carmelo Church or, as the inhabitants of Taranto call it, Carmine Church.

There are many and diverse churches in Taranto, each one characterized by its own personality. Among them, there is one you can’t miss to see, overlooked d’Aquino street, one of the main walks of Taranto. It’s Maria Santissima del Monte Carmelo Church, better known from the inhabitants of Taranto as Carmine Church. But, compared to the others, this one plays an important role in the tradition of the town.

Leggi in italiano

Why? Because it’s the starting and arriving point of the Rites of Holy Week, one of the most heart-felt period by the community of Taranto.

Usually, you can meet it during the canonical walk “in the centre”, as they say in Taranto. Today, we add a stop to our tour along the shopping streets of Taranto to know it better.

How to reach Carmine Church

We reach it easily: it’s right at the beginning of Niccolò Tommaso d’Aquino street. This street, which is the main one of the Borgo umbertino of Taranto together with Di Palma Street, is a pedestrian zone. So, we leave our car and reach the church on foot.

Maria Santissima del Monte Carmelo Church

Close to Piazza della Vittoria and the elegant buildings, with its clean and rigorous lines, the church gives a refined and solemn aspect to this corner of the town centre. You can feel this sensation even more during Holy Week , the moment in which the church has a roll of honour.

The façade is in Neoclassical style, even though, in reality, the church is here for much more time, since 1577.

Once, it was Santa Maria della Misericoridia Church. The name was changed when the Carmelite Fathers started to deal with it  and they dedicated it to the Blessed Mother of Mount Carmel, as the inscription on the trabeation tells us.

A curious thing that I’ve never seen elsewhere is that this church is so well blended with the shopping streets of Taranto that in the side wall, along d’Aquino street, it hosts some shops.

Above the shops, we find the elements of the church: the balcony for blessings overlooks Piazza della Vittoria, ideally crowded with believers and, higher, two angels guard the bells of the bell tower.

We come back to the main façade of the church. Getting closer to the entrance, we notice that a portion of the portal is covered with a protective slab: we can see round wear marks through it. Keep reading and I’ll tell you what they are about in a moment.

We come in. The inside is a precious chest: a nave where the grey tones of marble converse with the warm shades of the dome, while golden decorations enrich the heights of the church as they were lace applied on a dress. It’s welcoming and austere at the same time.

A little chapel on the right shows a portion of an ancient column. They say that it’s the place where Saint Peter celebrated the first Eucharist when he stopped in this land during his journey. There is also a little picture with the effigy and the epigraph wanted by the archbishop Caracciolo in 1651 to remember the event.

We look around, looking for what makes this church so important for Easter period. We don’t have to search long, because it’s the church itself that talks about its link with the Rites of Holy Week.

Looking up, on the walls, there is the typical cross that brings the instruments of the Passion, that one that we usually see during the processions of Holy Week, and the perimeter of the nave and the transept shows the icons of the stations of the Way of the Cross.

Besides, here there are some of the statues carried in procession during Good Friday, Our Lady of Sorrows and Dead Christ.

Carmine Church and the Rites of Holy Week

The relation between Taranto and the Rites of Holy Week was born during Spanish domination, when they were introduced by a noble man, don Diego Calò. He commissioned the statues of Our Lady of Sorrows and Dead Jesus, which were carried during the procession of Good Friday for the first time in 1703.

Later, his heir, Francesco Antonio Calò, donated the statues to the Confraternity of Carmine. In that occasion, he gave the dues to organize the religious event to the brothers. With the passing of time, other simulacrums were added to the original ones, like the one of the Fall and Ecce Homo, both still carried in processions nowadays.

In the afternoon of Good Friday, the procession gets out of Carmine Church. The symbolic figures of these rites are the perdoni (perdùne in the dialect of Taranto), who may arouse a bit of discomfort, being hooded, barefoot and holding a pilgrim’s staff, proceeding with a slow and swinging walk. They represent pelgrims who travelled to Rome to obtain the divine absolution and their slow walk is called nazzicate in local dialect.

For the whole night, the procession is guided by the troccolante, a perdono who plays an instrument composed of a wooden board beaten by metal handles, the troccola: it’s the unmistakable sound of this period that precedes Easter.

After the tour of the churches of the Borgo, in the morning the procession comes back to Carmine Church and here the troccolante stops in front of the closed portal of the church and knocks three times with his stick in order to enter again.

Do you remember that I told you about a “ruined” part of the portal, protected by a transparent slab? Here another witness of how much deeply this rite is felt, at the point of leaving visible on the church the signs of the blows of the stick given by the perdono at the moment of return.

These are very suggestive moments, even for non-believers, in which you can really fell the zeal with which the people of Taranto live Holy Week.

When to visit Carmine Church

Carmine Church is one of the most important church in Taranto, especially during Holy Week, but it’s a beauty to be discovered in any moment of the year.

It’s undeniable that during Holy Week it has something touching: the altar is set up for the occasion with a red cloth in the background and Our Lady of Sorrows is placed next to the cross, weeping for her son.

You can visit it every day, both in the morning and in the afternoon: just allow that elegant façade in d’Aquino street to invite you in.