In 1874 the open space beside the Calvario chapel served as a foundry: right in front of the entrance, a bell for the mother church of Ruoti was cast there. The chapel stands at the entrance to the village, on a tufa spur whose shape and position recall Mount Calvary, and it is from that rise that it took its name.
What to see
The front is reduced to essentials: a central door and two French windows at the sides, nothing more. Until a few years ago an inscription could still be read on the pediment; it is lost now, and with it went the one element that said anything about the date of the building.
Visiting
You meet it before entering the village, with no need to look for it: it is the first religious building you see arriving in Ruoti, which sits on a height above the fiumara di Avigliano. The tufa spur reads better from below, from the road, than from close up; then it is worth walking up, looking at the bare pediment and at the side space, the one used for the casting of 1874, and carrying on towards the old town.
Our editors' tip
After the chapel, go on to the mother church of San Nicola and look for the bells: it was for them that metal was poured here in 1874. In the same church, the dome and the perimeter walls, completed in 1805, are attributed to a pupil of Vanvitelli.