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.
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