History

The monastery of S. Maria del Carmine was created to provide Putignano with a structure to accommodate girls who asked to dedicate their lives to God by taking vows.

 

The University of Putignano, with the then mayor Antonio Fanelli and with the support of wealthy noble inhabitants of the city, in 1568 bought some houses in the area called "lo Castiello", owned by Nicola V. Renna and Aurelia Filotimo, and he assigned them to the Carmelite Order so that, with appropriate restorations, they could be transformed into a cloistered convent.

 

The deed of donation of the assets was stipulated by the notary Giovanni Innocenzo Carusio on August 17, 1568 and established the modalities with which the constitution and organization of the monastery was to be carried out. With this act, whose interested parties were the first citizen in office and Fra 'Giovambattista Cipriano (provincial of the Carmelite Order in Puglia), the University reserved the right to elect in perpetuity two procurators who, together with the prior of the Convent of Sant' Angelo (belonging to the male Carmelite Order), he had to preside over the administration of the goods and the management of the entrances of the new convent and express his consent for each new request for a monastic vocation made by citizens and foreigners.

 

In the deed of donation it was also sanctioned that "every nun who enters cannot enter without a dowry suitable for increasing the monastery, a dowry recognized by it reverend provincial et procuratori ut supra ...". he deduces that the consistency of the dowry was natural selection which allowed access to the structure only to certain social groups, the richest. The University in 1571 fixed the amount of access and stay in the monastery at 100 ducats "for ordinary cloths and six ducats for each year during the life of the nun ... for her food", also fixed the maximum number of 40 of the nuns to be hosted in the convent.

 

The University of Putignano never failed to take an interest in the construction and expansion of the monastery, allocating large sums of money for this purpose, as evidenced by the numerous university conclusions of the following years, because it is true that the monastery was founded so that the Carmelites , already present for some time in the city of Putignano, could "wait more comfortably for divine worship ...", this foundation also responded to a much more concrete need, that is, as stated in the deed of donation of 1568, "for the benefit universal". It is known, in fact, that the dowry required at the time of profession in all religious orders was significantly higher (sometimes even double) for foreigners. As there was no female convent in Putignano, those who intended to nurture their daughters or sisters were forced to go to nearby towns, where, obviously, they were considered foreigners and therefore obliged to pay more money for the dowry. Of secular foundation, the convent of S. Maria del Carmine in Putignano was placed under the ius patronage of the University with a specific Apostolic Brief and the external sign of this power was represented by the cloistered key owned by the podestà in the name of the whole Putignanese community. . . The cloistered key was returned to the religious authority only in 1849, at the end of a long lawsuit between the University and the bishop of Conversano. But a few years later, with law no. 3036 of 7-7-1866, the convent was suppressed and donated to the Municipality which used it as an elementary school. Restored, the convent currently houses the Civic Library.