Chiesa di San Gregorio Armeno
The Church of St. Gregorio Armeno, with its monastery, is located in the street of the old town famous for its cribs. Built on the ruins of the Temple of Ceres around 930, legend has it that here there was also a monastery dedicated to St. Patrician (kept in a reliquary and known for her miracles of the manna and the liquefaction of the blood), whose Basilian nuns would preserving the relics of St. Gregory, Patriarch of Armenia from 257 to 331. Among the '500 and' 600, under the Benedictines, the complex underwent a profound makeover by Giovanni Vincenzo Della Monica and Giovan Battista Cavagna. The facade is harmonious, with three Tuscan pilasters and arches in three windows; the portal is carved in relief with representations of Saints Lorenzo, Stefano and the Evangelists. The interior has a single nave with four side chapels and a rectangular apse, surmounted by a half coffered dome, decorated with scenes of the lives of the Saints, by the Flemish painter Theodore d'Errico. The altar is the work of Dionisio Lazzari. Inside there is still the "Holy Staircase" that the nuns were forced to climb on his knees every Friday of March. Outside, over the passage that connects the two buildings, transformed into a bell tower, leads the Convent, which houses a rich archive and a cloister, one of the most beautiful of the city, overlooked by housing the nuns and a large Baroque fountain with two statues.
