Church of

Archangel Michael

San Michel '

Commendable and wise system was that, from the earliest times of Catholicism, to build the House of the living God in different parts of the city and towns: the Church. So this district of ours begins and ends, in its ancient parts, with respective chapels.

The first rises at the eastern end, dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel, whose erection we believe must go back to beyond 1600. The Guadagni, with unusual silence, only notes the existence of it, having a vaulted ceiling, with a proportionate dome and governed by two deputies of the jurisdiction '.

Not having been able to find other written or oral references, we should stop and limit ourselves to describing it, as we see it today.

Quite outside the built-up area, no longer today 1987, because in the center of a new district, it has the prospect at noon, with entrance on a public country road; to the west flanked by a torrent, which often swells threatening; to the north and to the east, leaning against cultivated land, which makes it humid.

Although small (64 X 44 palms), it is the only church in these parts that has three naves, with arches and factory pillars. It has a proportionate presbytery, somewhat raised from the rest of the floor; only one altar under the small dome, originally it was made of wood, the Sac. Fr Andrea Barbati, former Father of S. Pietro in Cesarano, rebuilt it in marble at his own expense in 1866, according to the description that can be read on the steps.

In a niche, behind the said altar, there is an ancient wooden statue of St. Michael (stolen in 1982), on the entrance door there is a stage with a small organ, built by the Bursars of the festival in 1858. The praised Sac. Barbati just had the statue and the whole Chapel restored.

Under the floor there is a large burial, where it is believed the corpses of the victims of the great famine of 1600 were buried, a scourge following the Deste of 1530, which having filled the burials of the Par-rocchial Church, were buried in this second massacre in this church, for which the people. in memory of this, in November of each year he celebrates the Nine of Purgatory with great devotion.

There is a daily chaplaincy.

The founder of this sanctuary was Francesco De Lucia, a humble priest born in Mugnano del Cardinale, from a barber, in 1772. After his ascension to the priesthood in 1796 he taught literature and philosophy first in the Casa D'Illiceto, then in Naples. In 1805 he went to Rome to accompany Mons. Bartolomeo De Cesare, bishop of Potenza. On this occasion, thanks to the Monsignor, he obtained from the Pontiff a sacred body, with an ampoule containing blood, which he believed to be of the Virgin and Martyr Filumena. This is because in the niche were found three brick tablets on which the following words were read: LUMENA | PAX TE | CVM FI, with the symbols of the lily, the palm and the anchor, tablets that were later sold on 11 July 1827 to the rector De Lucia through Pope Leo XII.

In possession of this treasure De Lucia returned with it to Naples, where he had the sacred bones covered with the simulacrum of a girl and with clothes donated by a Lady Angelarosa Torres. Back in Mugnano, the parish priest D. Antonio Ippolito wanted this relic in the parish church, but De Lucia preferred to deliver it to the church of the Grazie, where it was never removed. Shortly afterwards he donated it with a public deed to the Municipality, in order to have in exchange the appointment of Custos, and then also that of Rector for life of that Church, of municipal patronage. From that day the cult of St. Filomena spread throughout Italy, and from Italy all over the world.

This religious building, the destination of continuous pilgrimages, was built in 1641 to house the relics of the Saint. The facade of the Sanctuary, truly splendid, has a dome with a small cylindrical tower and is accompanied by two twin square towers that exceed the aforementioned cylindrical turret. The bronze portal shown in the image on the right is very beautiful. Inside the structure there are several works of art.