Religious Places

Monastic complex of San Bernardino

‘building was built in the mid-15th century and thanks to careful restoration it was possible to recover almost all of its original elements, so it can now rightly be considered a model of Calabrian monastic architecture of its time. The central nave of the church is characterized by a wooden ceiling worked in Venetian-style keeled squares. Under the arch above the high altar hangs a 15th-century crucifix by an unknown southerner with a strong realistic and dramatic imprint, accompanied by the inscription "Hic me solus amor non mea culpa tenet." At its very feet was Vivarini’s Polyptych, now removed and placed in the Collegiate Church of the Magdalene.Another notable item, on the upper left, is a splendid pulpit with canopy from 1611, in the Classical style, decorated with bas-relief figures of several saints. Also part of the sacred equipment are a wooden choir from 1656 and a recently restored lectern from 1538 placed in the apse. On twenty-four octagonal tufa columns are set the arches of the monastery’s cloister, which preserves traces of frescoes dedicated to the life of St. Francis and created between 1538 and 1738.

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