The chiesa del Carmine (church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel), is built on a previous underground place of worship dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel, and is a scared building in the Gothic-Angevin tradition. Externally, the building retains almost entirely its original form, not withstanding the numerous transformations that it has undergone over the centuries that have modified some of the medieval installations. Inside the church, on one of the altars, there is an epigraph that displays the date 1305, which constitutes a terminus post quem (‘limit after which’ i.e. the earliest date an event may have happened) for the construction of the building, originally dedicated to the Archangel Michael, and, only after the subsequent establishment of the Carmelites in Mesagne which occurred in 1521, it was then consecrated to the Virgine del Monte Carmelo (Our Lady of the Mount). In the XVI century the church, abandoned and in poor condition, was restored by the Carmelite fathers and from that point on the architectural structure has remained substantially the same; while around the 1650s the Baroque altars were created and the internal decorations.
The church still displays the medieval layout with a single nave running east with a semi-circular apse which corresponds, on the opposite side, to the semi-lunate portal. Externally, the entrance and the southern side display slender pilasters and semi-pilasters that finish with a blind arcade. There is also the secondary in-filled lunate portal, and signs of a portico or exterior gallery, connected to the southern wall, possibly used to welcome pilgrims. The facade portal displays richly sculptured decorations of late Norman ancestry with eastern influences, characterised by a triple ferrule decorated with vegetal motifs (pine cones and espaliers) and human protomes. Of particular importance are the two human forms, one feminine and the other male, that give life to plant shoots from which protrude zoomorphic figures. On the architrave of the portal, l’Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) stands out, surmounted on on a frescoed lunette with the figure of the Archangel Michael. Internally, on the counter facade, there are original fragments of a fresco on which it is possible to recognise, on one side, the form of an archangel with unfolded wings, next to the Virgin with Child, and on the other side, the image of a saint framed in a decorative arch of espaliers.
The medieval church was enclosed with a wooden trussed and brick roof which was probably lost during a fire in 1854. The barrel vaulted roof in stone still visible today was built in 1869, together with the new majolica flooring which was substituted in the 1970s following flooding. To support the new stone roof, which was heavier than the previous roofing, the stonework of the medieval church was reinforced by covering the ancient columns with foliate capitals, with a series of heavy pillars in an open arcade style and the addition of stucco decoration. Inside, there are nine lateral chapels amongst which there is a chapel dedicated to the Virgin of Mount Carmel who is depicted in the wooden picture by the master Francesco . Palvisino of Putignano.
The cavern of Saint Michael the Archangel
In October of 1975, a violent storm caused flooding in all of the district surrounding the church, which in turn caused an enormous breach in the church flooring. As a result, a cavern was discovered, whose existence had been noted by the local historiography but whose location had never found, together with infant tombs and crypts underneath the central nave.
The natural cavern, 20m long and 6m wide, was initially used as a place of worship dedicated to the Archangel Michael as demonstrated by the fresco, conserved in the most sacred part of the cavern, which depicts the head of dragon pierced by a spear. Other fragments of frescoes decorate the cavern; in particular at the centre of the arch that divides the cavern into two spaces, there are traces of the figure of the Archangel, amongst emblems of the families that commissioned various works – probably the Stendardo and Braida families, or the de Braida family of French origin who arrived in southern Italy following the Angevins. In the southern corner of the first room there is also preserved a small human figure with a turban or bonnet; probably a benefactress or someone who commissioned some of the work, painted at the feet of a larger saintly figure and flanked by a white bird.
Probably in the XVI century the place of worship was converted into a crypt used by the Carmelites and the natural cavern was covered in a stone tuff vault and on the side walls, stone seats were created. The crypt was therefore used as an ossuary. At the time of its discovery it was full of human remains and personal ornamental objects of the deceased; such as crosses and devotional religious medals. To secure the crypt, a substantial reinforcement of the roof was undertaken and access was blocked to the most inner part of the cavern.
Monastery of the Carmelite Fathers
Devotion to the apparition of the Virgin Mary on Mount Carmel was brought to Mesagne by the Carmelite Fathers in 1521, the year of their settlement in the town. The friars had permission from Raimondo di Cordona, Viceroy of Naples, to open a monastery next to the already existing church of Saint Michael the Archangel. The Carmelite friars found themselves in a royal abbey, a title which the place of worship had received courtesy of Carlo II d’Angio in 1299, due to a particular devotion that the king had for the Archangel Michael to whom the church was dedicated.
