The church of Santa Chiara is a seventeenth-century place of worship in the city of Altamura. The church and the attached monastery were built in 1679; in 1682 two Poor Clare nuns with seventeen novices entered the new monastery.
What to see
The façade is divided in two by a projecting cornice. In the lower part there are three niches with statues of Saint Francis of Assisi on the left, the Immaculate Conception in the centre and Saint Clare of Assisi on the right. The bell tower, on the right side of the church, is Baroque in origin and was raised between 1722 and 1723.
The interior has a single nave, with altars along the sides adorned with paintings by unknown eighteenth-century painters. On the presbytery stands a white marble altar, with an enormous canvas showing the Immaculate Conception with Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Clare of Assisi and Saint Anthony of Padua.
Visiting
The church is in Altamura, in the province of Bari, attached to the monastery. The sources consulted give no opening hours or visiting arrangements: check them.
Our editors' tip
The community reached forty-two nuns in the nineteen-sixties. The nuns embroidered in gold and silk, painted on sacred vestments and made sweets to order; according to the sources they still make communion wafers for the city's churches and a walnut liqueur called Nocino or Padre Peppe. Sweets of almond paste and cream are still made today in the monastery's pastry shop, using the nuns' own recipes, methods and secrets: check whether it is open.
