Monastero di Santa Chiara

The monastery of Santa Chiara in Copertino was home to a community of Poor Clare nuns for more than two centuries. The complex brings together a Baroque church dedicated to Clare and Francis of Assisi, monastic rooms and a Renaissance palace incorporated into the monastery after a debt settlement.

Why it matters

Founded for the Poor Clares, the monastery became an important religious and economic institution in Copertino. Between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the nuns lent money to local families through census loans. The complex’s history links contemplative life with the ownership, exchange and lending of property in the town.

What to notice

The monastery’s Baroque fabric includes a staircase bearing the arms of Bishop Antonio Sanfelice, who commissioned eighteenth-century stucco decoration. The church contains altars and sacred furnishings associated with craftsmen active in the late seventeenth century, including Donato Chiarello and Ambrogio Martinelli. A Renaissance belvedere palace donated by the Morelli family in settlement of a debt was absorbed into the complex. The church is dedicated to Saint Clare and Saint Francis of Assisi.

Context and history

The municipality dates the monastery’s foundation to 1545, at the initiative of Alfonso Castriota; the community began under his granddaughter-in-law Maria, wife of his son Antonio. The nuns followed the rule of Clare of Assisi. A seventeenth-century rebuilding gave the complex its Baroque form, followed by enlargement and stucco work under Bishop Sanfelice around 1700. The Poor Clares used the church until the suppression of religious houses under the Murattian reforms. From 1826, the building housed the Confraternity of San Salvatore e Morti.