The Conventual Complex of San Francesco a Folloni is a place of religious interest located in Montella, in the town of the same name. Recognized as a national monument, it owes its name to the place where the first Franciscan community settled in 1222, namely the Folloni forest. According to legend, some brothers decided to build a church dedicated to the Santissima Annunziata in this place, after the Saint of Assisi was the protagonist of a miracle that occurred during their night stop in the f read more
The Conventual Complex of San Francesco a Folloni is a place of religious interest located in Montella, in the town of the same name. Recognized as a national monument, it owes its name to the place where the first Franciscan community settled in 1222, namely the Folloni forest. According to legend, some brothers decided to build a church dedicated to the Santissima Annunziata in this place, after the Saint of Assisi was the protagonist of a miracle that occurred during their night stop in the forest, on the way to the Sanctuary of San Michele sul Gargano. The first thirteenth-century church was later integrated into the monumental complex and replaced, in the fifteenth century, by a second religious building, with a single nave and numerous side chapels. The violent earthquake of 1732 made it necessary to build a new church in Baroque-Rococo style, higher and whose façade was rotated ninety degrees compared to the previous sixteenth-century structure, of which it retains some elements, such as the bell tower, the entrance portico and the current Chapel of the Crucifix which previously constituted the old apse. The complex today consists of a church, convent, cloister, museum and library. The eighteenth-century religious building has a majolica floor from 1750 and a rich ornamental set of frescoes and works of art, including the mausoleum of Diego I of Canaviglia located in the sacristy: this sarcophagus, made of precious marble by the sculptor Jacopo della Pila, is known as the “Monument to Lovers” and was commissioned by the count's wife, Margherita Orsini who, having died in 1521, decided to be buried next to her first husband, even though she had remarried. Also worth mentioning is the Museum, which houses a precious collection of sacred art, through which the history of the Convent is told, and the Library, established in the 15th century, which houses approximately 20,000 volumes, works dating from the 16th to the 18th century. The entire complex is a place where you can perceive the Franciscan charisma, imbued in the environments, history and legends linked to this national monument, a destination for many tourists and home to art, culture, music and spirituality events. read less
