Putignano - Puglia - Italy - Church of Santa Maria di Costantinopoli

The cult of Santa Maria di Costantinopoli in Naples and Putignano

"The year 1528 was very unhappy for all of Italy, particularly for our Kingdom of Naples because there were three scourges of God, war, plague and hunger".

The Neapolitans, strongly terrified, organized processions of penance, but the viceroy forbade them to take place and invited the entire people to gather to pray in the churches. At the same time in 1528, Francis I, King of France in continuous diatribe with the Emperor Charles V who also owned the Kingdom of Naples, sent the Viscount of Lautrec to Italy who, informed of the enormous difficulties of Naples resulting from hunger and thirst, advanced with his army towards Naples, but due to a tactical error of the French policy, the Genoese besieged Naples by sea. The Doria in fact passed to the Spanish front and lifted the naval blockade, while the plague was a real extermination among the troops of Lautrec. The remains of the French army decimated by the plague surrendered on 8 September 1528, the day of the Nativity of Mary. The plague had arrived in Italy following the Lanzichenecchi del Sacco di Roma in 1527 and the subsequent plague of Milan described in the Promessi Sposi.

The people were therefore free from the external enemy, but frightened by the infection of the plague which, arrived at the hands of the invading armies, continued to sow death and mourning. The epidemic still persisted at the beginning of 1529 and in the month of March the apex of the infections occurred. With the arrival of summer, which was quite unusual, the scourge began to disappear.

Many described what happened and attributed the end of the siege to the intervention of the Madonna, as well as that of the plague:

"In the month of June of this year 1529, on the third day of Pasca Rosata (Pentecost Tuesday), an image of the Most Holy Mother of God was found near the walls of the city of Naples, by revelation of an old woman who lived nearby , to which the end of the plague was promised by the Mother of God, as can be seen with effect; and therefore the City of Naples immediately began to build a Church in the said Image, with the title of Madonna of Constantinople, and hopefully, that protect it from said disease for its future in every future time. And not only did Our Lady of Constantinople free Naples from the plague, but also from war and hunger "

The veneration of Santa Maria di Costantinopoli could have been extended from Naples also here to Putignano by means of the Judge Pietro Romanello and who returned here to his country of origin, after having graduated in law and notaries who, to exercise his profession, built the Cappella, endowing it with the ancient framework still existing and then with his testament of 11/27/1858 he bequeathed it together with all his possessions and other buildings to the Archconfraternity of the Blessed Sacrament with the commitment of the aforementioned heirs to have a Mass celebrated there a week for his soul and two more a month for his parents.

The Madonna of Constantinople can therefore be associated with San Cataldo, San Michele, San Sebastiano, San Rocco and finally Santo Stefano in the role of Protectors of Putignano from the danger of the plague which in the past was lethal wherever it arrived.

The outside

The external architecture of the Church of Santa Maria di Costantinopoli is in line with that of the other rural churches in the area.

The width of the front facade is about 4.20 meters, it has a white wall in lime milk, where the entrance door is located, in the upper part there is a small bell gable on which the bell axis is shown the date 1845, presumably on the top of the bell tower there must have been a cross, which no longer exists today.

Immediately above the access door to the church there is a local stone skylight, the shape of which is of a square with four semicircles adjacent to the sides of the square itself. The skylight made by hand by the stonecutters who in 1500 were able to perfectly cut and shape the limestone using only manual tools and only the strength of the arms.

The sloping roof is covered by the typical local limestone chiancarelle, masterfully set one with the other.

wooden choir stalls

Having the Archconfraternity of the Blessed Sacrament located in the church, on the side walls you can see the presence of the ancient wooden stalls decorated with inlays and paintings, they are dated 1777. In all, 51 seats are available and each is numbered and reserved for one of the 51 brothers of the coven, in fact, the brotherhood has a limited number.

There are seats reserved for the President, the First and Second Assistants, the First Elder and the Bursar

The highest seat is in any case reserved for the spiritual assistant or other ecclesiastical authority who should participate in the meeting.

A curious news about the closed number stopped at 51 is that when during the Christmas period the number 51 was played / played at bingo, it is announced with "i Fratel d'Crest".

Archconfraternity of the Blessed Sacrament

The Archconfraternity of the Blessed Sacrament is the most long-lived of the six Confraternities present in Putignano and among all the ancient institutions of the town only the Mother Church of San Pietro Apostolo, the Church of Santa Maria la Greca and the University (today's Municipality) they can boast a previous foundation date.

The original name of the congregations at the time of their constitution was "Brotherhoods of the Body of Christ", which still remains today in the dialectal denomination of these brothers who are usually called the "Brothers of Crest"; later transformed into Confraternities of the Blessed Sacrament thanks to the Council of Trent (1543-1559) wanted by Pope Paul III Farnese (1534-1549). The latter proposed this modification to respond to the lacerations made by the Lutheran Reformation by initiating in this sense a profound internal and external renewal of the Church which will then culminate in the Council of Trent which he himself convened and which will later be known as the Counter-Reformation.

The establishment of the Confraternity was made in the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome in 1539 to arouse greater respect and veneration of the Blessed Sacrament both in the church and on the occasions when it was removed from churches such as Viaticum for the sick or in procession . establishing that all the Confraternities constituted everywhere under the same invocation of the "Sacred Body of Christ" enjoyed the same privileges, concessions, indulgences, faculties, graces of the Roman Confraternity.

The foundation of the Confraternity in Putignano took place with a Public Parchment Document of 23 April 1574 issued by the Vice Chancellor of the Roman Church Cardinal Alessandro Farnese Bishop of Frascati, nephew of Paul III.

Initially it was based in the church of San Pietro and the group included all the capitular priests and also the laity with the aim of promoting the cult of the Eucharistic Mystery, keeping the decoration of the altar where it is kept, to accompany it when it is brought to the sick and in all processions and solemn celebrations and always provided what was necessary in the functions of Corpus Domini, the Forty Hours, in the Holy Sepulcher and in Viaticum, administering wax, oil for lamps and whatever else was necessary. In addition to his own chapel in San Pietro, he also obtained the small church of Santa Maria di Costantinopoli following the conclusion of the Chapter of San Pietro on 6 April 1612 and following the testament of judge Pietro Romanello drawn up on 27-11-1558 by the notary Giovanni Carusio with the burden, as was customary in those days, of having you celebrate one Mass a week for his soul and another two a month for his parents.

In 1768 it was reserved for lay people only and adopted new rules which received Royal Assent on 28-2-1769.

urna votazione confraternita

In 1840 he applied to the Government to be elevated to the status of Archconfraternity and obtained a favorable Royal Decree of 18-12-1840 with the obligation to compete with an annual duchy of 30 at the Cassa dei mendici. With the daytime rank of the brotherhood vote, the Archconfraternity is always the last to parade in all the processions in which the other brotherhoods participate.

To date, the number of confreres cannot exceed the maximum number of 51; some of the older ones no longer attend because they are unable to attend for health reasons and therefore their subrogation would be possible. Each of the members of the archconfraternity has a say in the decision to be taken on any subject. As evidence of this, there is the pair of urns, the very ancient cec'r bianch and cec'r gnur (white chickpeas and black chickpeas) used to vote for or against the proposals under discussion.