What to see · Cava de' Tirreni

More places of interest

• Abbazia della Santissima Trinità

  The abbey of the Santissima Trinità, known as the Badia di Cava, is a Benedictine abbey in the hamlet of Corpo di Cava, at about 400 metres above sea level and three kilometres from the centre of Cava de' Tirreni, not far from the Amalfi Coast. It was founded in 1011 by Saint Alferius Pappacarbone, a Salerno nobleman of Lombard origin trained at Cluny, who withdrew to a hermit's life under the great Arsicia grotto, at the foot of Monte Finestra.

  What to see

  Many disciples soon gathered around Alferius: between the grotto and the river Selano a church and a small monastery rose, the core of today's abbey. In 1025 Prince Guaimar III of Salerno and his son gave the community the woods and lands around the grotto; the archive was born from that charter. The first four abbots, Alferius, Leo I, Peter I and Constabilis, were proclaimed saints in 1893. Peter I, Alferius's nephew, enlarged the monastery and founded the Ordo Cavensis, with hundreds of dependent churches and monasteries across southern Italy; in 1092 Pope Urban II consecrated the basilica. The present façade dates from the second half of the eighteenth century; the dome, choir and transept were frescoed in the nineteenth century by Vincenzo Morani.

  Among the works are the ambo with twelfth-century mosaic, two Renaissance reliefs of Saint Matthew and Saint Felicity, the seventeenth-century altar in polychrome marble of the Chapel of the Sacrament and the grotto of Saint Alferius, with the urn of his relics and remains of fourteenth-century frescoes. In the basement of the basilica the original buildings and traces of structures of the first century AD are partly visible. The thirteenth-century Romanesque cloister is adorned with Roman sarcophagi. A vast twelfth-century hall is a museum, with a fifteenth-century Sienese panel, an eleventh-century ivory casket, a polyptych attributed to Andrea Sabatini, Caravaggesque canvases, archaeological finds, coins from the Lombard and Norman mints of Salerno, majolica and illuminated codices. Queen Sibylla of Burgundy, second wife of Roger II of Sicily, is buried in the church.

  Visiting

  The abbey museum is at via Morcaldi 6 and the state library of the National Monument at via Morcaldi 2, in Corpo di Cava; it is reached by the Badia di Cava state road. Since 1866 the abbey has been a national monument. Visiting hours for the museum and the church must be checked.

  Our editors' tip

  The library holds more than fifty thousand volumes, many incunabula and sixteenth-century editions, and the archive keeps over fifteen thousand parchments: among the best-known pieces are the Codex Legum Longobardorum of 1004, the oldest collection of Lombard laws, and the La Cava Bible. The documents from 792 onwards are published in the Codex diplomaticus Cavensis, begun in 1873.

• Chiesa di San Rocco

  The church of San Rocco stands in the historic part of Cava de' Tirreni and, together with the cathedral, is the only religious building facing onto the main street. It was commissioned by the town council on 11 August 1526, during a plague, and built in 1528, dedicated to the Madonna di Costantinopoli and to Saints Roch and Sebastian, protectors of plague victims.

  What to see

  A plaque with a Latin couplet was set into the wall over the door: while Roch drives away the contagion of the dreadful disease, the inscription says, Cava builds him his house. The eclectic façade has two orders: below, a portico, closed by a railing the Comune had put up in 1865 because the town's growth was blocking the entrance, stands before the three doors; above, in the centre, a marble square with a rose window lights the hall, beneath the gabled roof. The single nave is sober: the decoration is concentrated on the triumphal arch, the inner narthex, the two arches of the side altars and the arch of the choir loft, where travertine alternates with grey stone in two-tone bands.

  The church was restored several times: in 1610, with the marble altar given by Monsignor Domenico Sorrentino; in 1743, at the faithful's expense, with stucco work and perhaps the two side altars; in 1857 the choir loft above the portico and the organ were built, with public donations; further restorations followed in 1864 and, after the cholera, in 1911. In September 1943 the church took a direct hit from bombs and the roof collapsed; after years of waiting it was restored in a sober Romanesque style.

  Visiting

  The church is on the main street, in the historic centre. It is a subsidiary church of the parish of Sant'Adiutore. Opening hours and service times must be checked.

  Our editors' tip

  At the end of the apse there is a delicate reproduction of Cimabue's Crucifix kept in the museum of Santa Croce in Florence, painted by the Cava painter Matteo Apicella. Saint Rita of Cascia, dear to the faithful of the Ferrovia district, is also venerated in the church.

• Chiesa di Santa Maria Incoronata dell'Olmo

  The basilica of Santa Maria dell'Olmo is the shrine of the patron saint of Cava de' Tirreni. The cult goes back to the eleventh century, when some shepherds found a painting of the Virgin caught in the branches of an elm: taken to the church of San Cesareo, or of Vetranto according to others, it is said to have returned by itself to the place where it was found.

  What to see

  The first historical date is 1482, when Saint Francis of Paola laid the first stone of the shrine. The church was served by the Minim friars until the nineteenth century, then by the Fathers of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri. On 21 May 1672, on the proposal of the mayor Fulvio Atenolfi, the town government took the Madonna dell'Olmo as its special protector, and in July 1931 Pope Pius XI raised the shrine to a minor basilica. The earthquake of 1980 badly damaged the building.

  The church has a single nave with small side chapels. The ceiling is entirely painted with episodes from the life of Saint Francis of Paola, a seventeenth-century work by Michele Ragolia, and the dome over the high altar is frescoed. The high altar, inaugurated in 1924, has four statues by Francesco Jerace, Saints Adiutor, Alferius, Francis of Paola and Philip Neri, at the foot of a bronze elm in whose leaves the painting of the Virgin is set; it once stood on the altar of the Sacred Heart. Also worth seeing are the statue of the Immaculate Conception by Naccherino (1594), on the last altar on the left near the sacristy, and the marble pulpit by A. Balzico, resting on a lion and a bull, symbols of the evangelists. At the second-to-last altar on the right lies the Servant of God Father Giulio Castelli, who in 1896 founded the congregation of the Oratory in Cava and whose cause for beatification is under way.

  Visiting

  The solemn feast is celebrated on 8 September, the Nativity of Mary, as it has been since 1581. Beside the basilica is the convent that once belonged to the Minims, now the house of the Oratorian Fathers, with youth and parish activities and a library. Opening hours must be checked.

  Our editors' tip

  The convent's sixteenth-century cloister, of 1582, hosts concerts during the year: it is worth checking the calendar. The basilica also has an organ, which has been restored.

• Castello di Sant'Adiutore

  The castle of Sant'Adiutore stands on Monte Castello, a 460-metre hill that the people of Cava call «the mountain», around which all the hamlets of Cava de' Tirreni are gathered. Its date of construction is uncertain but earlier than the year 1000: the castle is mentioned in the charters of donation to the Badia of 1035 and 1058.

  What to see

  The hill straddles the two roads that led to Salerno, and the Lombard princes built a fortress there, the stronghold of a chain of towers, earthworks and walls that ran through the localities of Serra, Borrello and Campitello to the locality of Arco, where the via Maggiore passed. The defences were first called «Castrum Salerno», then «Castrum Sancti Adiutoris», after the saint who gave his name to the area; from the sixteenth century the generic name Castello prevailed. When the prince of Salerno granted the Metelliana valley in fief to the monastery of the Santissima Trinità, he excluded precisely the fortress, which he wanted to keep to defend the main road to Salerno.

  In 1527, during the war between Charles V and the league of the pope, the Venetians and the French, the leader of the league landed at Salerno and tried to pass through Cava towards Naples: the castle's cannons and five hundred Cava arquebusiers barred his way, and the townspeople then retook Salerno, help that was recalled to the emperor himself. During the Second World War the castle, wrongly believed to be a German artillery stronghold, was razed to the ground by the bombs of Anglo-American fighter-bombers.

  Visiting

  The area is looked after and managed by the Comune and the Ente Monte Castello. From the top the view ranges from Monte San Liberatore to the south to Monte Finestra and Monte Sant'Angelo to the west, and as far as Vesuvius to the north-west. Hours and access arrangements must be checked.

  Our editors' tip

  The hill is the heart of the Festa di Montecastello, in honour of the Blessed Sacrament, held since 1656, when the parish priest of the hamlet of Santissima Annunziata, Don Angelo Franco, carried the Blessed Sacrament in procession up to the castle to pray for the end of the plague. In the octave of Corpus Domini the blessing is given to the town from the castle, the «pistonieri» fire blanks and the feast ends with fireworks; in those days families eat spleen, soppressata, aubergines with chocolate and macaroni pie.

• Chiesa di Santa Maria del Quadruviale

  The church of Santa Maria del Quadruviale is in Cava de' Tirreni and takes its name from the crossroads near which it stands. It was built around 1383 and took its final form at the end of the sixteenth century.

  What to see

  The sixteenth-century façade and the six-stage bell tower, with its small dome clad in majolica and enriched with sculptural elements, are an example of the Renaissance architecture of the well-known master builders of «La Cava».

  Beside the church is the oratory of the confraternity of the same name, with wooden stalls and a finely painted ceiling. In the rooms below there was also a hospice for pilgrims, because the important via Maggiore, the road that led from the valley to Salerno, passed nearby.

  Visiting

  The church houses a museum, on via Quadruviale, in the hamlet of San Pietro. The sources consulted give no opening hours for either the church or the museum: check them before visiting.

  Our editors' tip

  From the church you can walk stretches of the old via Maggiore, which crossed the mountains to reach Salerno: a way to combine the visit with a walk in the footsteps of the pilgrims who stopped at the hospice.

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