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The convent of the Poor Clare nuns

In one of the most fascinating fortresses in Italy, the Aragonese Castle, there is a nunnery which preserves a fascinating history. Before talking about this story, however, it is necessary to contextualize it by talking a little about the Aragonese Castle of Ischia.

The Aragonese Castle of Ischia, if you come here you absolutely must visit it!

The Aragonese Castle represents Ischia in the world, anyone who spends their holidays here cannot fail to visit it. It has hosted many historical figures and today it has become a point of attraction for many tourists and a cultural center for events related to literature and art. It is in itself a fortress that contains centuries of history and is made up of 13 churches including the cathedral, accommodation for nobles and servants, terraces from which to admire a beautiful panorama of the Gulf of Naples, a prison, a nunnery and a cemetery below the church.

History of the Convent of the Poor Clare nuns of Ischia

The Convent of the Poor Clare nuns was active from 1577 to 1809, founded by the Neapolitan noblewoman Beatrice Quadra. She was a widow who, after her mourning, found consolation in prayer by opening the convent on the castle and hosting approximately 40 nuns who, at the time, lived on the hermitage of San Nicola, on Mount Epomeo. Most of them were first-born daughters of noble families destined from birth to monastic life to leave the family inheritance to the first-born male. Below the main church there is the monastery cemetery where the lifeless bodies of the nuns were decomposed on stone chairs with holes at the bottom, called “drainers”, and the sewage and bones dripped and were collected in earthenware basins placed on the underneath the chairs. From this custom came the Neapolitan term “puozza sculà” that is “may you drain”. This macabre practice was carried out to reflect on the uselessness of the body as a simple container of the spirit. Every day, the nuns came to the cemetery to pray for their lifeless sisters and to reflect on death but by remaining there for several hours they risked contracting serious illnesses, sometimes even fatal, due to the unhealthy environment that they breathed in that place.
The Convent of the Poor Clare nuns of Ischia was closed in 1810 following the secularization law issued by Gioacchino Murat where all the religious orders of the Kingdom of Naples were suppressed. The 16 surviving nuns moved to the Lanfreschi palace in Ischia Ponte and then to the convent of S. Antonio, and the deceased nuns were moved to the Ischia cemetery. Today the cemetery can be visited and the monastery has become a small hotel.

The love story of the Mortella Gardens

The name “Mortella” derives from the Neapolitan dialect “myrtle” and indicates the “divine myrtle”, a plant that grows abundantly among the volcanic rocks of the hill where the garden is located. The love story between Sir William Walton and Lady Susanna Walton and how they built the garden begins in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Sir William Walton, before he met Lady Susanna, had a relationship for 15 years with an older woman who helped him grow his career. In 1947 she was 46 years old, single and went to Buenos Aires for an international conference of the Performing Right Society, Susanna was 22 years old at the time and worked for the British Consulate in Buenos Aires, to a press conference organized by her, for the composer, Sir William noticed her among the journalists and decided that the woman should marry him. It was love at first sight, that same evening Mr Walton surprised Susanna by asking her to marry him, in two weeks they got engaged and married after two months, leaving the couple’s family and friends in disbelief. The spouses left for Europe, more precisely for Italy, which William had visited in 1919. Fascinated by the beauty of the Gulf of Naples, William Walton chose the island of Ischia where he lived together with his wife for 35 years. The Waltons moved to Ischia in 1949 and purchased land in the Zaro area, in the municipality of Forio where in the 1960s they began to build the garden thanks to the help of the landscape architect Russell Page, who designed the entire structure of the area of ​​the Valley. Lady Susanna, however, took care of the upper part of the garden called the Hill and during the works supervised the choice of plants and the project which she has been dealing with for more than 50 years with love, patience and energy, hosting more than 3000 species of exotic plants , enriched by greenhouses, streams, lakes, fountains allowing the cultivation of aquatic plants. In 1991 the Mortella was opened to the public, Lady Walton created the William Walton foundation which, after the latter’s death, inherited the garden. It is an organization that continues to this day to promote music, particularly that of Sir Walton, and to look after the garden. Today, with love and dedication, the foundation also opens numerous classical music and entertainment events to the public which are performed in particular in the Greek Theatre, a stage which has the beautiful panorama of the municipality of Forio as its backdrop.

Mount Epomeo

Born more than 100,000 years ago, Mount Epomeo is the highest peak on the island of Ischia with its 789 meters. In reality it is a submarine volcano that emerges from the water and from whose activity, according to the volcanological history of Ischia, the volcanoes of Barano, Montevezzi, Capogrosso, S.Pancrazio, Citara and Sant’Angelo were formed. From the stratified formation of the green stone it can be deduced, according to the local Vesuvian Observatory, that the last eruption dates back to 1302. Along the slopes of Mount Epomeo and throughout its circumference are the six island municipalities: Ischia, Casamicciola Terme, Lacco Ameno, Forio, Barano d’Ischia and Serrara Fontana municipality from which you have access to the path that leads to its summit and from which you can enjoy a fantastic panorama.

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