Chiesa dell'Annunziata

The hamlet of Annunziata preserves the memory of Massa Lubrense's first cathedral. Rebuilt at the end of the 16th century on ground linked to the medieval church, Chiesa dell'Annunziata contains an 18th-century marble altar attributed to the workshop of Giuseppe Sammartino and a painting of the Annunciation attributed to Nicola Malinconico.

Why it matters

The church is associated with the site of the Major Ecclesia Lubrensis, the medieval cathedral destroyed in 1465. The episcopal seat then moved to Santa Maria delle Grazie in Massa centro.

What to notice

The simple gabled facade has a mid-16th-century fresco of the Annunciation above the portal. Inside, a single nave with four chapels on each side is decorated with late-17th-century white stucco. The 18th-century marble altar, attributed to the Sammartino workshop, has an Annunciation relief; above it hangs a painting on the same subject attributed to Malinconico. The first chapel on the left contains Silvestro Buono's 16th-century Madonna of the Rosary and Mysteries; the Pio Monte chapel holds Paolo de Majo's Addolorata.

Context and history

At the end of the 16th century, Marco Cangiano restored the church and founded the adjoining conservatory Ave gratia plena for poor girls. An inscription above the door records renovations in 1749 under abbess Maria Cristina Romano and the blessing by Bishop Liborio Pisani. After the complex was abandoned in the 1930s, it passed to the Minim Friars of Saint Francis of Paola in the 1950s; the former conservatory is now a convent.