Chiesa di Santa Chiara is more than a church, it’s an indoor cemetery. Until 1767, it was home to the Jesuit fathers but later, after the Jesuits had been expelled from Sicily for the peace, security, and happiness of the beloved peoples, [apparently the Jesuits were getting a little too political and not staying with the confines of religon], it was given to the Poor Clares.
What is so amazing about it though, is not the architecture, or the famous oil by Guiseppe Salerno of the Lame of Gangi that once hung in the sacristy but is now in the Museum of Alessi, or the magnificent 1850 majolica floor (something I’d not seen since Naples), but that its niches house the bodies of soldiers who died in WWII.
The side chapels have all been remodelled, the statues they housed long since removed. On either side of the church, the walls house the bones of those who died. I’m not sure though if they are ashes or bones. It could be a giant columbarium. [A piece of trivia for you, columbarium is the Latin for dovecote. And when you look at how the funerary niches here are side by side and row by row, you can see the resemblance.] On the other hand, they could be crypts [spaces in a wall built to receive a casket, then sealed and covered with a white marble plaque with an inscription about the deceased]. Given the year, though, I’m leaning towards crypts.
Along the top run a series of murals depicting various war scenes, perhaps the most remarkable being the one that shows soldiers falling to the death from the town’s fortress. Inlaid in the marble are photographs of the soldiers and airmen. They all look so young, so movie-star-ish.
It is quite a compelling place. The woman on duty was more than happy to chat away in Italian, no doubt telling me the history of the place and how it all came to be, but sadly, my Italian is even worse than my Hungarian. The church itself was built between 1614 and 1616, funded by the mother-and-son team of Francesco and Costanza Rotundo. It has seen a lot in its time and it’s still standing. Definitely worth a visit if you find yourself near Enna.
